Hate To Say You Threw It All Away!

A couple of weeks ago Dead Stop put out their third release entitled Live For Nothing and again, just like the Done With You release show, Belgium’s Lintfabriek got packed to celebrate this event and, just like the Done With You release show, it was one of the best shows most of those present have ever seen. A couple of days before that very release show I did this brief interview with Axeman Michiel about Live For Nothing and the current US tour:

You just put out a new record, Live For Nothing. Wasn’t it hard to write a follow-up to the incredibly received Done With You album? I assume you wanted to write a record that was as good as Done With You, and if possible even better. In my opinion you succeeded in meeting those terms, but do you think it was worth taking that risk? Were you confident enough that what you had written was good enough, or did you, at first, have some doubts about the new material? Do you think Dead Stop has outdone themselves?

I think it was definitely worth taking the risk. When we released Done With You we didn’t have any plans for the future, we just played a lot of shows and all of a sudden we started to write new stuff again. We wrote a couple of songs for some compilations and we had a good feeling about the new stuff, so we started working on other new songs. It all came in a really natural spontaneous way. There was no real pressure or anything. Of course we didn’t want to write a second Done With You LP, but the basic ingredients were the same. We’re still Dead Stop and we’re not going to try to sound completely different. Over the years we just became better musicians and we all learned how to write a decent Dead Stop song, so writing new songs was a lot fun. In my opinion the songs are typical Dead Stop songs only a little bit different and better. The vibe is more negative, more aggressive and that’s what we really wanted to create. We added some new influences to our sound and I think we succeeded in writing a good follow up to Done With You without rewriting that LP. We definitely haven’t outdone ourselves, because I think we could have made it better than it is now. I wanted to add some more details to some songs but sometimes you got to make compromises. But really, writing Live For Nothing wasn’t that hard a task, it just came natural and we’re satisfied with the result.

A graveyard, tombstones, a raven, black frames… The whole record’s lay-out theme and title seem to be about death. Is the death of Dead Stop inevitable? Is the whole thing coming to its end or is Dead Stop not quite done with us? Will you let the Dead Stop flame burn out or just let it fade away?

Of course the death of Dead Stop is inevitable. We don’t want to drag this band down. When the time is right we have to move on to new things and create something new. It’s not good to rehash things over and over again, so yeah someday Dead Stop will come to an end. When we feel that the vibe and the energy is gone or not as it used to be we will quit. I think that’s the best you can do as a band or as a musician. Why drag things down when you can create so much more, different, music? At the moment we feel that Live For Nothing is the last Dead Stop album ever. We feel that we wrote every song we had to write and we don’t want to write a new album just to release something or please an audience. But that’s what we said after Done With You as well. In ten, five, or even two years I’d rather have people think about Dead Stop as an awesome band than about the band being the one that just played one too many shows and ended up being a shadow of what they once were.

On your 7” you had a dead businessman, on your full-length you had the rotting corpse of that businessman and now you have a 12” with his grave. Is this a full circle?

We always had songs dealing with things like people who live their lives but not really living it. I have a hard time with people who just waste their lives away, not doing anything constructive or adventurous. You know the typical birth-school-work-death scheme…it’s not for me. It scares the hell out of me. It’s not that I don’t want to settle down or anything, it’s just that I don’t want to become a boring loser who has his house and goes to work everyday and sits in his sofa every Sunday. I don’t want to live that life. For me, hardcore punk is about living your live, about having fun and explore the world. I’m thankful that hardcore taught me that lesson. And that’s something I will carry on with me for the rest of my days, no matter what music I’m into. So it’s one of the main themes in our lyrics. It’s kind of funny that, without any real intention, the artwork for Live For Nothing deals with that kind of feeling again. There wasn’t like a plan to have three covers with that certain metaphoric symbolism, it just happened. The artwork of the Live For Nothing LP symbolises death without having really lived life to the fullest, plus for me personally it also stands for the current state of the hardcore scene. It always has its ups and downs and it always has to die out before it can rise again. It happened in the 80’s, in the 90’s and I think it’s happening again, in Europe at least, whether we like it or not. When people start complaining about stupid things such as bands having too much “success” or when some idiots look down on kids because they’re having fun, you know there’s something wrong with hardcore’s state. And I think that’s the way we’re heading right now. The kids are getting spoiled and start taking everything for granted. The only advice I can give to the kids is: don’t get caught into that trap, don’t start whining and bitching over every little thing, be thankful that the scene we have these days is so good and be happy that you can see bands like Justice, Restless Youth and Rise And Fall play every week. On the bright side I still see enough positive things in hardcore as well. New bands keep coming up and new kids keep coming to shows, that is great.

Live For Nothing is out in the US on Havoc Records, Done With You was put out by Deranged Records. Why did you change labels for your northern American press?

There was no particular reason for that change, we agreed to do a one record deal with Deranged and we were happy he gave us the opportunity to release Done With You in north America, but we wanted to try something new. As soon as we heard Havoc was interested we wanted to work with them. I only hear great things about that label and they release some good stuff, so we’re really satisfied with that choice.

Complete Control Records already put out its fifth release, the fifth, let’s be honest, European hardcore classic in a row. Michiel, as being one of the main men behind Complete Control Records, it’s been quite something since CCR 001, hasn’t it? How do you feel these days about Complete Control Records and its Declaration Of Principles? Do you think you held on to the principles you set out to live up to or do you think you (and possible the other involved with Complete Control Records) have had to make compromises one way or another along the DIY road? Did you come across any obstacles you hadn’t foreseen when you decided to start releasing records yourself?

Well, it all went pretty fast. It’s been a year and a half since the first CCR release and now we just released CCR 005. It’s been crazy. I’m really proud of the stuff we released so far, the first Justice 7” still is amazing and the Restless Youth 7” is one of the best hardcore punk releases ever. The great thing about those two bands is that you can hear them evolve. When you listen to the Justice EP and you compare it to the new LP it’s awesome to hear what they’ve become. The same with Restless Youth, their new stuff is going to be even better than their 7”. I don’t think the world can handle that kind of music. Raw hardcore punk as it was meant to be, totally crazy. I think it’s cool that the three Complete Control bands are doing their own thing. We don’t sound the same, but we share the same ideas and love for hardcore punk and music in general.
Of course things have changed since the beginning and we’re still remodelling the label every day. When we started out we didn’t have any distribution or anything so we worked with the people from Reflections Records and they helped us along the way. Nowadays we’re handling our own distribution and we’re still working hard everyday to improve things. But this is kind of hard at times as all of us are working real full-time jobs next to our daily Complete Control hours.
I think we succeeded pretty well in holding on to our principles. Every band still has to put in own time, money and energy. That’s how it is. The idea of the bands having complete control is still one of the most important principles, we still feel that a band’s record has to be made with the band’s blood sweat and tears, not only the music, but the whole nine yards concerning the release of a record. I’m not into labels putting out sloppy releases. Every release we do has to look good and has to be of a certain quality, that’s the Complete Control requirement and guarantee. That’s why we make gatefold LPs, digipack CDs, etc. We want to add something extra to the product. And I think that’s only possible when you have complete control over your own stuff.

When I examine the lay-out of Live For Nothing two bands come to mind: Tragedy and Void. Are those two bands also heavy influences to what Dead Stop stands for? Or is the whole thing rather a coincidence?

Musicwise those bands are of no influence at all, but you can say that their artwork kinda influenced us. The Void side of the split with The Faith is by far one of the best looking things ever. As a historian I am totally into that Middle Ages stuff. The Tragedy link is somehow coincidental because Restless Joseph did the lay-out and we had no idea what it would look like. We’re totally satisfied with the result and it’s a good representation of our music. As our music became a little bit darker and depressed, the lay-out perfectly fits the music. As far as those two bands being an influence on what Dead Stop stands for, I can say that we have a lot in common with those two bands. Void was one of the early hardcore bands who added crazy stuff to their music, they weren’t afraid to add some weird influences to their songs without losing the essence of a good hardcore punk song. They totally did their own thing which is great. Both bands are great hardcore bands with a good punk vibe.

‘Fuck that progress we regress!’ sings Lino perhaps a little bit naïve in Dead Stop, the song, but whether you like it or not when listening to Live For Nothing I do hear a band that has progressed. A band that has progressed between the 7” and LP and between the LP and this 12”. I also hear some non-hardcore influences in some of the songs, am I right?

Of course we progressed, as we became better musicians, but that song Dead Stop was written in a time when hardcore was almost non-existent and all we had was metal bands or rock bands who thought they were hardcore bands. What people tried to sell as hardcore was just plain metal, which is ok, but don’t call it hardcore. Call it whatever you want but like I said so many times before, you can’t claim to be playing jazz music when you are actually playing rock ‘n roll? So why can a metal band claim to be hardcore in any way? We founded Dead Stop as a reaction against all those trends. We wanted people to realise that you still could write a good hardcore song with only three chords. And we still believe that today. For example when you listen to the new song Walk The Line, which is maybe the simplest Dead Stop song ever, you hear a hardcore song with three chords and it lasts only 40 seconds. But I think it’s one of the best and hardest songs we ever wrote.
Of course you do progress in a way and it’s good to throw in some other influences, but without losing the essence of the hardcore song. We also progressed in our song writing, which is a logical step when you play for that long together in a band. We certainly have some non-hardcore influences, but it’s necessary to try something different. It just makes the music more interesting. That’s what all the great hardcore bands in history did, going from SSD and the Bad Brains to Underdog and Rest In Pieces. They all did something special and tried different things, but without losing the essence and remaining a hardcore band. We definitely progressed but not without losing the hardcore vibe. I still can’t write decent leads and Gert still isn’t able to play drum solos for twenty minutes, but that hasn’t got anything to do with hardcore. Even if I could play leads like Joe Satriani I wouldn’t play them. Hardcore music to me still is about raw, honest and simple music. Music that everyone can play, that’s what punk and hardcore was about, music for everyone and played by everyone. If I want to progress as a musician I’ll play in a different band. Dead Stop is a hardcore punk band and will always stay a hardcore punk band.

On the Live For Nothing insert I noticed that the final track Letting Go was recorded by Lino instead of by Patrick Delabie a.k.a. Europe’s Don Fury, Steve Albini and Lou Giordano. What happened? Did Lino quit his job as a waiter to replace Patrick? Did Dead Stop end up having beef with Patrick over the last song and did he leave the studio or something?

None of that happened. When we were recording that song we still didn’t know how we wanted it to sound, when we hit the studio that song still wasn’t finished, so we asked Patrick’s opinion and we changed the song a bit. So we started rehearsing that song in the studio while Patrick went out for diner. He gave some instructions to Lino how to record and that’s how it happened. We recorded that song in two takes without really rehearsing it. That song is born out of a jam-session and we had no idea what it would sound like. Lino did a good job and pushed it to reach our highest potential.

Tell me the story about when Lino walked back into the studio finding you with you guitar on your lap sliding over its strings making weird noises to put over one of your songs and Pat Delabie smashing effect buttons on the control panel like a madman. Sounds like the two of you were caught red-handed pulling some Dillinger Escape Plan shit to Dead Stop. Or am I looking at the wrong picture here? What would have happened if Lino hadn’t walked in at that moment and the two of you would have had your way?

It all happened during the recording of that song Letting Go. I wanted to add some special effects to get the most out of that song. I wanted to create something that would get the best out of the song and use it to its maximum potential, so the music would connect to the lyrics best. I wanted to add a slide guitar because it gives you that great woolly, spacey effect. When it comes down to adding special effects Patrick gets kinda enthusiastic and starts to experiment with lots of things. I think he did too much dope in his days plus he’s a big Butthole Surfers fan so that’s why he’s into that freaky stuff. The whole situation was kinda hilarious, because Patrick was pushing some effects and I was playing the slide guitar with my eyes shut, completely overwhelmed by the moment and then all of a sudden Lino walks in and is really pissed off, because he thinks we’re totally messing that song up. The thing is that he could only hear the experimental guitar noises outside the studio. Inside the studio we heard the regular music as well, but Lino was standing outside so I can understand his reaction. When Lino hadn’t walked in there would have been a harmonica in that song. I still find it a pity that we didn’t get to do that, but maybe that would have been a bit too Western.

You are going to tour some part of the US and Canada again in a few weeks, 12 months after your first US tour. I guess you are stoked to go over there again. Do you have different expectations than last time? What do you hope will be better than last time?

Last time we didn’t expect anything at all and got a great tour with awesome reactions, so I guess it’s normal that we have some expectations now. So far the shows look really promising and I can’t wait to go again. I’m stoked to say the least. However I still don’t have too many expectations, I expect the least and we’ll see what happens. I know last year a lot of people were surprised by us and we got some really good feedback, so I hope things will be even better than last year. I actually hope we get the chance to play as many good shows as last year. Last year the Richmond, St Louis, Canada and Boston shows were really good. We basically play the same cities as last year, plus some extra shows. So I guess it can’t go wrong and we’re really anxious to go again and see all the cool people again we met last year.

Thank you.

You too, thanks for the opportunity to talk about our new record. Look out for it, it’s out now on Complete Control Records in Europe and Havoc Records in North America. Like I said already we’re looking forward to go the States next week and meet new people, bands and visit new places. Thanks for the interest… Fuck that progress, we regress.

So, tonight Dead Stop are playing a Halloween show in Washington DC, home of George W. Bush, Dave Byrd and the Bad Brains, and last night they rocked New Jersey. Steven Tuffin sent Larry Edge a text message asking how the show went and he got an answer that said something like that the show was pretty good, despite being jet-legged, that they had seen a couple of new movies on the plane and that they all missed him a lot already. This sounds like a good start for the tour to me and my bet is that the shows will only get better. So if you’re in doubt about traveling to that Dead Stop show in the state next to you, I’m telling you from over here: you’ll regret this forever. So, get in touch with that chick on MySpace that lives near the venue to crash after the show and perhaps you have a great time twice that night.

Here are the dates for the Dead Stop 2005 US tour, some are incorrect, but I have forgotten which ones exactly, I believe the show in Atlanta got cancelled and the show in Kansas City got relocated to a place close-by and is now a show together with The Regulations. Other than that these dates should be correct:

30 October 2005: The U-Turn, Washington DC

31 October 2005: Nanci Raygun, Richmond, VA

01 November 2005: Seabreeze Lounge, Daytona Beach, FL

02 November 2005: Day Off, this date was supposed to be the Atlanta show

03 November 2005: Ramp Riders, St Louis, MO

04 November 2005: Haunted Kitchen, Lawrence, KS (I think this is the updated KS show)

05 November 2005: TC Underground, Minneapolis, MN

06 November 2005: Day Off

07 November 2005: Pulaski Park District Building, Chicago, IL

08 November 2005: Refuge Skate Shop, Dearborn, MI

09 November 2005: Adrift Skate Park, Toronto, ON

10 November 2005: Caf L'Inco, Montreal, QC

11 November 2005: Regeneration, Boston, MA

Here's some more intersting stuff for you:

http://www.completecontrolrecords.com

http://www.myspace.com/deadstop

http://www.sudoku.com

http://www.zonemagazines.be

On The Loose, They're On The Loose.

Last week I came to realise that one of the best current US hardcore bands, 86 Mentality, will kick off their tour of our European continent in less than 14 days. As I want to support the band as much as possible I had promised them a while ago that I would do a little interview about the tour and some other random stuff for Megalomaniacal Supernauts. I quickly made up a bunch of questions and I got the answers back the same night already. As I saw them live a bunch of times already I can let most of you European readers know already that you are going to see a great show. Hook those dudes up with local beer and show them a good time. This is what Jason Halal, drummer and spokesman of the band had to say:

In less than one week you guys land in Europe for your very first European tour. How is 86 Mentality preparing for this journey? Did you pack your bags already? How is each individual in 86 Mentality mentally getting ready for this? What’s the most remarkable item each crew member will have packed with his personal belongings? And most important: are you nervous already?

We are all REALLY excited, but there’s a lot of headache to deal with in getting ready. Practicing is the easy part. The rough stuff is logistics like figuring out what to take with you, who’s borrowing what equipment from who, etc. That’s the stuff that drives me crazy. And yes, I have already started packing my bags because I’m forgetful and if I don’t, I will forget something at the last minute.
I’m not sure if anyone’s taking anything remarkable, but I do know that Matt is taking his father’s iPod, which is actually really funny. After we come home, he’s staying in Europe for a week and a half with his girlfriend, so he’s making sure he puts as much music on that thing as possible before he leaves. It sounds normal, but he’s taking this really seriously, doing daily 6 hour shifts copying music and everything... I have no idea what Steve is bringing, but our roadie Matt has just $300 to last him the 2.5 weeks which includes partying and everything else, so I wish him luck with that. And as far as I know, Jewdickee isn’t bringing anything special although he was talking about buying a phone so he can text message people in the US, which we all think is retarded. But I think Steve convinced him that he would smash the phone if he actually bought one, so he may not actually do that. Me, I’m just bringing a book I just picked up on the history of English hardcore 80-84 and some bags of almonds and other nut mixes for the road.
Are we nervous? Yeah, a little, but I think we are tighter now than we ever have been so I’m really not too worried about how we sound. I just hope people have some idea who the hell we are…

Jason, every time I talk to you about the upcoming European tour you mention how excited you are to play Dead Stop’s record release show at ‘t Lintfabriek in Belgium. Why are you so stoked on playing that show?

How could I not be? I’ve heard so many stories and seen so many photos of Dead Stop shows in Belgium. After Striking Distance played with Dead Stop on their European tour, Dave Byrd kept telling us how blown away he was. Then he returned for the Done With You record release show at ‘t Lintfabriek which sounded even wilder. He said that after their set, his white shirt was covered in footprints, so of course I’m psyched! Plus, having played about 10 shows with Dead Stop in the US and Canada, I can’t wait to see them on their home turf, where I know kids will be flipping out.

Most US bands have the tendency to break up once they have toured Europe, will that happen to 86 Mentality or have you set out to break the Curse Of Touring Europe And Calling It A Day?

That’s a good question, I don’t know. I don’t want to jinx things, but I’m really not sure on how much farther we plan on taking this band. I think we’ve gotten very lucky with minimal output (two EPs) and just the fact that we’re going to Europe is a huge achievement, considering that many bands aren’t that lucky. But I really do love playing with these guys and everything that comes with it so I hope it won’t come to an end too quickly. Actually, we plan on touring the West Coast next summer, so unless something weird happens before then, at least I can plan on that before we call it quits.

You’ve toured in the US with Dead Stop, an European band, in order to hook them up more easily with places to play, places to stay and stuff like that. Not that this is something necessary, but it makes things easier on the practical side of things. 86 Mentality won’t be touring Europe with a local/European band, don’t you fear that this will be a bit of a disadvantage in order to get kids to your shows or do you think you’ll get a decent turnout all by yourself? What are some of the European bands you’d like to have been on tour with over here?

You know, we had the opportunity to tour with Dead Stop and Restless Youth this past May, which would have been amazing, but timing wasn’t on our side. The record was heavily delayed and I was in the middle of getting a new job, so it just wasn’t the best time for us to come over. Now that we finally have the chance, of course we would still love to go with another band, but like I said before, we are so lucky to be able to do this in the first place that I think we’re mostly just appreciative of our good fortune. Plus, Coorde and Gert were nice enough to put together this whole tour for us, which we couldn’t have done ourselves.
But we will be playing three shows with Dead Stop and a few UK dates with Restless Youth and Municipal Waste, so it’s not like we’re going to be all alone either.
As for other European bands, I must confess I’m not really too aware of many bands in existence right now aside from the Complete Control bands and a few others. But I’ve heard great things about Reproach and I’m really excited to discover what’s out there, especially in Sweden and Denmark, which I hear are really cool.

How many tours did 86 Mentality do actually already? Isn’t it a rather big step to take, coming over here for more than two weeks when you haven’t toured the US as long as you will be touring Europe?

This is only our second tour. The first was with Dead Stop in the US and Canada and that was only 10 shows, so we haven’t really done much of anything in the big picture. Not because we don’t want to, but because we all have jobs and busy schedules and can’t afford to go out touring the way we would like. But that’s also why we’re lucky, because there are a million bands out there touring their asses off that are probably more deserving than us to be going to Europe. So yes, I suppose that is a big step, but I think we’d rather do this while we have the chance than wait and lose the opportunity forever, right?

You have put out a new EP entitled On The Loose just before the summer, how have the reactions been on the EP so far? Do people seem to like it more than the first EP? I keep hearing rumours that there will be an LP with both EPs on it as an European release, any truth to that?

Reactions have been good. Perhaps some people like it better than the first EP, but I really just haven’t heard enough to know about that. It’s hard to tell.
The LP is a long story, but let me just say that at one point we had someone in Europe who agreed to put out an LP, which would have been both 7”s and some extras, since the first EP didn’t get a European release. It ended up taking a long time for us to finish the recording and by the time we were ready, the person who was supposed to release it was no longer able to. There have been a few offers since then, but since we lost the opportunity for more people to check us out before our tour, we’re not rushing to release the LP as soon as possible. Plus, we just received our CD called Going Nowhere Fast from Grave Mistake that has all the contents of the LP, including both 7”s, an exclusive song from the demo, two unreleased tracks, two live songs and two covers, and we’ll be bringing that on tour.

I couldn’t help noticing that On The Loose sounds a lot more mid-tempo (or less fast, as you wish) than the self titled debut. Is this because you changed guitarists? Or is there another reason for this? Why did you actually get a new guitarist?

Yes, there are more mid-tempo parts on this one, but the fast parts are just as fast as on the first one. Not for any particular reason, just because those are the songs we ended up writing. The whole reason why we got a new guitarist is because our old guitarist no longer wanted to do the band. Originally, it was Steve on guitar, but we couldn’t find anyone we wanted to sing, so Steve took over and then we got our buddy John who Steve had played with in No Justice, to take over on guitar. John quit after the first 7” came out, then finished his band, The Aftermath, and started Set To Explode, and we got Matt from Crispus Attucks on guitar.

Are you guys writing new songs already again? Or do you have the post-recording songwriters block? Will you be doing another EP or do you aim at releasing a full length next?

I actually hate answering this question, because I have absolutely no idea what we’re doing after this. I’d like to do another record, possibly a full-length but I’m not sure we plan on sticking together that long or that it’s in our best interests, since we’re all really happy with the way the EPs turned out and I wouldn’t want to release another record if the music didn’t live up to previous recordings. And nobody here wants to release a How We Rock or anything like that, so it may just be better to end on a high note while we have the chance. I guess just wait and see...

Finally, what are your general expectations for the European tour? And if you have anything to add, now’s the fucking time.

All I know is Kris Coorde told us to look forward to good Belgian beer, frites, hot Scandinavian girls and getting fed at shows, so as long as I get those things, and see Dead Stop at ‘t Linfabriek, I’m happy. Of course we hope to play good shows, but I’m also really looking forward to seeing our friends in Belgium, meeting new people and bands and travelling with my band mates. So here are the tour dates, thanks for the interview, Flex, we’ll see you in a week!

Thanks and see you soon.

This is the complete tour schedule, so if 86 Mentality is playing near where you live, definitely go check them out:

6 October Ghent, Belgium (with Dead Stop)

7 October Ibbenburen, Germany (with Dick Cheney)

8 October Hengelo, Holland

9 October Bremen, Germany

10 October Linkoping, Sweden

11 October Stockholm, Sweden

12 October Copenhagen, Denmark (with Signal Lost)

13 October Liechtenstein, Germany

14 October South West Germany TBC

15 October Kontich, Belgium (Dead Stop Record Release with Municipal Waste and Reproach)

16 October Tilburg, Holland

17 October Düsseldorf, Germany (with Dead Stop)

18 October Day off

19 October Leeds, England (with Municipal Waste)

20 October Liverpool, England (with Restless Youth)

21 October Newcastle, England (with Restless Youth)

22 October London, England (with Restless Youth)

And if you are still wondering what the fuck 86 Mentality sounds like check out their MP3 Chemical Threat (of the On The Loose EP) at the Grave Mistake MySpace page (www.myspace.com/gravemistakerecords), get over the 'weird' vocals and be able to singalong to at least one song. In case you are wondering how the singalong goes, here's a little help: "Chemical Threat One Two Three, Body Check For You And Me, Chemical Threat On LSD, Deep Throat's Down By Your Knees" is NOT how it is supposed to be.

2, 3, Spoiler!
Belgium’s crowd favorite number two Justice just got back last week from their two month bi-continental tour and already again there’s important news. Their bass player (and equally important to a band like Justice: their artwork dude) Kevin Alen, a.k.a. Push The Limit a.k.a. Spoiler, is playing his final show with Stief, Billy, Tilburg and Flip as he is moving to Canada, following his wife Friday who went back there just before the summer. As everyone will be missing this dude, his artwork, his zine, his stage presence, his humor and his eating habits I figured I’d give the Spoiler one last chance to speak out a little about Justice, but also about himself, his trek out of Belgium and the summer of ’05. All Hail The Spoiler!

You are just home again a couple of days from the Justice Annual Western World Summer Tour, are you used to a real bed already again?

Actually I don’t have my apartment anymore, so I’m sleeping on a mattress on the floor at my mom’s house. The first few days after tour were unreal. So much happened in two months and there was never any time to sit around and think about it, so once tour was over it all hit me. It was weird being alone, with no time schedule or anything.

The second summer in the existence of Justice, the second summer of an extensive US and EU tour. How was it this time around?

This tour was obviously a lot longer first of all, especially in the US (last year was nine US shows, this one was twenty-nine US shows). We got to go all around, see all of the “scenes” and places. Also last year we were there pretty much on a demo, not knowing what the fuck we were doing, with our van breaking down constantly, etc. This time around we had our shit together a little and we actually made some money this time too.

How would you compare Y2K5 Summer Tour to last year’s summer tour? Did the hardcore scene go through some noticeable changes in some places since the summer of ‘04?

In the US I noticed that a lot of the “cool” crowd was gone and in most places the crowd was made up of young kids. It reminded me of the UK actually. US dudes get jaded at like what? Twenty? Fuck that. On a positive note we were treated really well at all places, people were friendly, almost all the shows we played were awesome. In the EU I noticed a lot of the not-so-hip places we played last year or in the winter with Righteous Jams, like Poland, East Germany, etc. had all improved a shit load since last time. Give those dudes a year or two and their scene will explode.

What were some of the highlights and lowlights of the tour?

Highlights: All the great shows and the cool places we saw. All the beaches we went swimming at in Florida, San Diego and Spain. Hiking, the lake in Seattle, so much shit… Hanging with Mental, meeting a bunch of cool people everywhere.
Lowlights: members of Mental breaking their edge, people arguing (even though this is no big deal for a two month tour), the fact that touring the US costs so much more...but honestly there weren’t many lowlights.

What are some of the better bands you’ve seen on the road?

Underdog!!! There were also the obvious great like Iron Boots, 86 Mentality, LOJ…but I’d like to mention some cool new bands: Iron Age (the demo is ok, but live they kill), Like It Or Not, Scab Picker 69 and I’m forgetting some.

What were the best 5 shows of the tour? Which shows do you want to erase from your memory as soon as possible?

Off the top of my head: ‘t Lintfabriek in Belgium (thank you all for not being over us), Chicago, Boston (we only got to play five songs, but it was intense), Posi Numbers (seeing AJ in the corner of my eye in his orange shorts getting ready for a dive did it for me) and Nottingham. The only one I’d like to erase from my memory is obviously our Ieper Fest set. You’d think after sixty shows in a row Billy would know how to play our songs.

Did you write a tour report for your next issue of Push The Limit zine?

Yeah, I kept a journal the entire two months and this will be published in its original uncensored form. It’s obviously pretty long so it may be in Push The Limit or become a zine of its own (Justice: The Book) to accompany Justice: The Movie.

Speaking about your zine? What’s up with that, when will there be a next issue? How did people react on your last issue? What are some of the most remarkable things people said about it?

As usual I am taking forever, but this time I have the excuse of touring all summer and moving across the globe. I am working on it though. It will have only live interviews with Cold World, Iron Boots, Violent Minds, State Of Mind, and more. Last issue was received really well. The main things I remember is how many people loved the piece on the Icemen (this was inspired by my man Tombeur by the way) and how many people got into the Icemen because of it. Also the prudish kids who said that boobs have no place in hardcore zines. Why the fuck not?! Seriously!

Saturday September 10th you are playing your final show with Justice as you are moving across the ocean. How are you feeling about playing your last show? Will you miss the band? Will you miss Belgium? What will you miss the most about Belgium/Europe? And what are some of the things you won’t miss at all? Will we ever see you back again on this side of the Atlantic?

Not one day goes by that I don’t feel shitty about it. I don’t even know how I feel about it, I try to kid myself into positive sides to it, but there aren’t any. It’s going to be fucking weird going on that stage for the last time. I guess I’ll try not to be too dramatic about it. I am going to miss everyone in the band dearly and I’m going to miss doing the band: practicing, doing artwork, road trips, touring… Justice was one of the biggest things in my life and played a big role in who I am today. Wait, I said I wouldn’t be dramatic. Belgium has the best scene in the entire world and I am going to miss its shows and all the great friends in it. I’m particularly bummed on not getting to see how the scene evolves, Dead Stop’s and Justice’s last shows, new bands… I will definitely be visiting Belgium, maybe I can pull off some roadie duty or something. I also made a deal with my wife that if we decide in a year or two that Belgium was cooler to live in than Montreal, we’re coming back!

Thanks and good luck!

For those of you who want to see Spoiler in action with Justice one last time, come out to JH HobNob in Brasschaat/Belgium this Saturday, also on the bill are True Colors, Turn The Screw, Restless Youth, Reproach and Dead Stop. Show starts at seven!

Society System Destroyed His Life.

Last year I bought and read Broken Summers, a book written by the well-known Henry Rollins. The book is a look behind the scenes of the making of his Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs To Benefit The West Memphis Three CD and the world tour that followed. The book is written in Rollins’s typical combative in-your-face style including a decent dose of pretentious self-pity, masochism and a better-than-most-of-you-attitude. All of his journal entries are pretty entertaining though and remind me a lot of those in Get In The Van, only written by someone older and wiser, but definitely -and fortunately- not less confronting and pissed-off. His anger and frustration concerning the fate of the West Memphis Three is heartfelt and -dare I say?- righteous. If you are into going through your little sister’s drawers in order to find her secret diary and being that much of a voyeur that you really want to read it, try reading a journal of someone who wants you to read all about himself instead, also if you are into what Henry Rollins is doing in general, into Black Flag or into William Shatner you should give Broken Summers a shot. It’s a good read. The reason for me talking about the book is actually something totally different. When reading Rollins’s books I always have some sort of activated sensor to alert me whenever a hardcore legend’s name pops up in sentences, usually said-dude’s Ian McKaye, but all of a sudden on page 168 of Broken Summers I see ‘Springa from SS Decontrol’! Sirens and red alert! Hold on a minute? Is he gonna talk about Springa? THE Springa?! Let me grab a pen and paper so I can make notes! Who can I share this exciting news with? Who will be stoked to hear about what Henry of Black Flag has to say about Springa of Society System Decontrol in 2003? At the time when I was reading this book I couldn’t think of anyone who would be, but I always kept the passage in my mind. And now, one year later, I realized that I might find some kindred dorks who are into stupid stuff like this as well, dorks who are into reading blog sites of insignificant dudes like myself. Ladies and gentlemen, behold, Henry Rollins on Springa:

06-15-03 Boston MA: […] I had a disturbing incident earlier in the day. I was backstage working online on business stuff and the one and only Springa from SS Decontrol came in and started talking a mile a minute. He looked totally insane. He seemed to be talking to himself or something. Oblivious that I am working, he goes into this thing about coming out from Chicago to bury his father who never did anything more for him than chain him up in the basement. He repeated that about three times and then he said he was thinking of auditioning for some kind of acting troupe that was going to tour in the summer. He went on and on, it was nuts. Finally someone from the venue came up to him and tried to throw him out because they thought he was some guy off the street. Springa asked me if he could come to the show and pulled out a few crumbled one dollar bills and said that’s all the money he had. I nodded the guy to ok it and told Springa I would see him later. He went on about some other spacey shit and then the guy said he had to leave and he just shuffled out. I never saw him again. The backstage manager told me that earlier Springa had come up to him and told him that I said it was alright for him to have a ticket and if he didn’t get one, “Henry was going to be very angry.” This is long before I saw him. The last time I saw Springa was years ago in Chicago and he came barreling backstage walking around the room, sweating like he was on something, going off on some insane tangent. I don’t know what’s up with the guy. We used to play with his band and they were good. […]

Check out these sites to find out more about some of the things I talked about:

http://21361.com/
http://www.wm3.org/splash.php
http://xclaim.com/
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/usa/lyrics/ssd_kids.html

In The Meantime, A Preview Of What’s To Come.

The next issue of The Ghent Decontrol will be a special about NYHC: interviews with some of the protagonists of the New York scene of the 80s and early 90s (the days when CBGBs still was cool), reprints, quotes, stories… There will be 60+ pages spend on delivering you all you ever wanted to know about Citizen’s Arrest, Rest In Pieces, Absolution, Warzone, Altercation, Cro-Mags, The Psychos and Token Entry.
Here is a little teaser of some of the things that will be in the zine and I hope you will be interested enough to order the zine once it is out. I won’t be featuring the interviews online whatsoever, if you want to read more you will have to buy the zine and will have to look at ink instead of pixels. I hope you still can do that…

These are excerpts from interviews with Absolution’s Gavin Van Vlack (originally appeared in Making A Scene by Bri Hurley), Citizen’s Arrest’s Patrick Winter and Rest In Pieces’ Armand Mandji. If you like this stuff, keep in mind: there’s a lot more where that came from!

ABSOLUTION:

“Skinheads talk about anti-homosexuality when their girls look pretty similar to them. I used to think that it was cool and cute. I went out with skinhead girls. I don’t find the English fashion fitting for a woman. It makes them look like men. This sounds rather chauvinistic, but it does. I don’t find it attractive. The oxblood boots, and the Fred Perry shirt, and the stay-press pants, and the Friar Tuck haircut. I think it kinda loses, to tell you the truth. But I don’t like wimpy women either. I don’t like weak people in general.”

CITIZEN'S ARREST:

"CBGB’s for me wasn’t always the most fun place to see or play a show. It has a great reputation and all mainly because it’s in NYC and has been home to some legendary acts. Some of the Sunday hardcore shows were pretty scary. There were some real bad elements that got into the place during the mid to late 80’s. Kids who were really illegal aliens who just came to start fights and all. You would go into the pit to try and get a mosh move in and there’d be a schmuck that couldn’t speak English running around with a chain hitting people with it or taking cheap shots at people. The bass player of Our Gang got punched by one of these losers right in the face for no reason. I think it was because he had long hair at the time. Some of the bouncers there were good and some were real dicks and would do fucked up things like punch people in the face. I used to go every week like a religion. Often times we wouldn’t even pay. I would pay if I felt it was worth it but a lot of times we’d share each other’s hand stamp by licking our hands and pressing it on someone else’s. There were some great shows there even still. When Chain Of Strength played there way back it was great because they weren’t that popular yet so the place wasn’t that crowded but you could feel the Californian energy. The best thing I ever saw at CBGB’s was when Absolution played. First off, when Absolution came out their demo was the hottest and best demo around. It was as long as an album and was the most original thing you’d ever heard. Amidst the youth crew bands and angry style bands Absolution was just like “Fuck it! We’re unclassifiable but we blow everybody away…” And they did! So anyhow, during their set at CBGB’s the microphone just went out and Djinji, the singer, just kept singing without a mike. And you could still hear him and you just respected how he didn’t care. They loved what they were doing and they were going to do it no matter what. Also, if I remember correctly, Gavin, the guitar player, went after the board guy after the set. Gavin was a great guy, but you knew never to mess with him. Absolution was the best band around back then in my opinion and if you haven’t heard them you are missing out on a lot."

REST IN PIECES:

"That record represents a strange time. I wasn’t opposed to putting some distance between Rest In Pieces and the hardcore scene because I wanted more musical freedom than the scene normally allowed. Adding slide guitar was a shameless effort to show how influenced we were by bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Rose Tattoo – and neither band was fashionable to anyone in the scene. We did ‘I Got the Fire’, a cover of Iron Maiden covering Montrose. Like I said, it was a strange time. We really wanted to make Rest In Pieces different than the rest of the hardcore scene and we liked being the odd man out. A lot of our fans that would come out of the woodwork to see us at CB’s appreciated that aspect. We would see a lot of faces that wouldn’t normally show up to generic hardcore matinees. Regarding the record, I like to describe it as a recorded experiment gone wrong, that was made public. It didn’t sound like us and the sound was watered down. I tried to sing too much when I should have approached the vocals exactly like My Rage. It could have been a thousand times better."

Welcome To All You Kids Of The Black Hole!

As from now on it’s official, I’ve turned into a total geek, a bigger nerd than the characters in High Fidelity, Napoleon Dynamite and Ghost World combined. No longer am I just a messageboard bickerer, an addicted downloader or an online researcher –or better said “researcher”- for articles and things in the line of my interests. No, from now on I joined the community of those who think they are interesting enough to share their thoughts, opinions, ideas and knowledge with the world through the vehicle of the online log book, better know as a blog. The reason for me to pick up blogging is simple, it will save me a lot of time that I will be needing for other stuff soon as I am heading back to school in a couple of weeks, for a couple of years. And this time I’m not planning on fucking up. Some of you may know, some of you may not, but I am also doing The Ghent Decontrol, a hardcore fanzine that I’ve been doing for a few years now…not that I have put an issue out the last 18 months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on one. Well, after the next issue (#5) will have been let loose upon the world the fanzine will be on hiatus for a while, until I’ve got time again to do what I love most about fanzines and that’s cutting and pasting. That time will be once I’m done with school again, in a few years. As far as doing interviews, writings, news updates and reviews goes…that’s what I’ve created Megalomaniacal Supernauts for. So what can you expect from me and possible other Megalomaniacal Supernauts? Well, mostly stuff about hardcore, be it interviews (with bands, labels, hardcore hall of famers, or interesting kids in general), writings, tour reports, reviews or news. I am aware of the fact that I said ‘mostly’ because it may happen from time to time that I cover something that’s not necessarily part of the hardcore spectrum, that could be about –other- music, movies, books or stuff that I think is interesting not only for me or that I want to share with you people. Basically everything that has balls and attitude and the will to confront could be covered by the Megalomaniacal Supernauts. What you shouldn’t be expecting from me is stories about my personal life, gossip, politics and other stuff I’m not schooled in enough to have a decent view on. There are already enough people pretending they know shit having a say online while the only shit they know is jack, you all can do without me blabbering. Until I’ve finished The Ghent Decontrol issue #5 there won’t be happening much over here, but once the zine has been put out you all should keep rechecking my spot often. I have a lot of plans…