This interview was conducted with the band in my bedroom. That same day I recieved a phone call from Tim DJ Sniggle Fritz (skunk club DJ & promoter) asking me if I was doing any thing and my answer was well actually since the Monday I had been very ill with a throat infection which was why I hadn’t gone into HMV where Tim & Matt (promoters for tonight gig) both work like I would usually do the day of a local show to check it was cool for me to turn up early to interview whomever was playing that night.

So Tim’s like oh we need a place for the band to stay! Now I’ve always said to the guys because of what I now do I’d be happy to put up bands etc but didn’t really expect a call the very day of the show about it. Netherless although I could hardly speak and of course a club filled with smoke is not the best place for someone with a throat infection and much to my parents dismay (they love it really) I said ok.

The gig went down well & the club was packed me actually talking was another issue because it hurt so much but aside from sounding like a pre pubescent teen who’s voice was starting to break I managed it.

This was done the day after the show before they went on their way, not much of a language barrier and they also showed great appreciation for my gran’s home-made strawberry jam & marmalade (which incidentally rules).

Random chatting starting off with a sxe tattoos being mentioned

-Its not really like says I’m straightedge but (It’s the sheep from the Minor Threat Discord thing)

People in the back ground trying to figure out the conversation being about sxe

“I’m weak”

“I used to be strong but now I’m weak”

“At least I have been strong – you’ve been weak all your life”

everyone laughs

As you know I haven’t prepared anything cause I didn’t know if I’d get my voice back!

So what did you think of last night what was the show like? In comparison to the other shows you have played?

Well of course the AFI show was a lot bigger but were not used to doing that big kid of shows so I guess this is like the shows we do in Holland only the fans on the stage it was weird really weird we hate barriers between like audiences (The Furnace where the show was has these stupid metal barriers between one level of the dance floor to the other section hmm not the greatest idea) and like if you do a small show its just its really hard for the crowd to get into it.

You want to be able to interact with the audience

Yea

And jump in there

Yea and stuff like that like the best shows are the shows where there is just a floor and nothing in between the crowd

The highlight though and I don’t want to say the refused cover but for me as a fan of that band it was the coolest thing about the set because it was so unexpected I think to the rest of the crowd also

Because they’d split up now I never thought I would have the opportunity to see it performed live and it one of my favourite songs

Are there any other bands apart from Refused that you guy's really respect?

Myself I’m into a lot of early eighties English stuff like joy division and the cure but band wise we all have totally different bases there are only a few bands which we all like and refused is one of them so that why we decided to perform one of their songs

What’s the scene like back in Holland I know a bit I've been talking t65o various people I don’t know (I point at a stack of CDs effectively the beginning of my distr.) if you can see? Releases by Hectic & Emplane

Oh yea

Dawn of the Awakening Darwin and NBP

What’s the scene like cause I know some of those bands aren’t together anymore?

No I think Darwin isn’t together anymore which is a shame because we’ve played with them a lot

They’re really intense

Yea there and amazing live band and there really nice kids um at the moment there like youth crew stuff is coming back like bands popping up everywhere (its taken too long check out I defy & Sworn In leading the way)

Who else is on reflections I also mention Good Clean Fun cause they have quite a few youth crew bands

Well its like a positive hardcore label and we had been talking with them for a long time for ages because they were trying to find us a good label cause they were like were mostly doing the youth crew stuff we don’t know if we can fit you in and after a year / 8 months it took a while long time ok well just going to realise it ourselves cause we really wanna do it

I think it helps though when a label has a focus like if you look at Victory at the moment It seems to be signing up Emo / Ska bands & post hardcore bands Waterdown, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Voodoo Glow Skulls I don’t know what there new rooster bands sound like Count Me Out for example but they've also just signed Glasseater (who I interviewed last year)

Yea well Count the stars

The newer bands I really didn’t like so I’m not following victory at the moment a lot of bands in America are getting signed at the moment by labels I think for the wrong reasons you know if they build up a big bag catalogue they can get a bigger distributor so that’s like Equal Vision and Victory are ….

Equal Vision are one of the only labels at the moment oh and Ferret in comparison to Victory and revelation I think for diversity they are still out there will big up the youth crew or beatdown hardcore bands and I think that’s very important instead of going with the “new” trend

I do think that id liked all the earlier bands much better than the new ones cause there signing so many bands at the moment that there going to bands that aren’t quite as good being signed

They have to work there way up the ladder etc first rather than hardly any touring experience and being signed up early on

Yea I mean so it’s a sham e like a couple of years ago 5/6 years ago everything that was put out on Equal Visions records straight into my collection everything was good and now you really have to listen to it and

I listen before I buy

Oh yea and downloading mp3

Actually I don’t download anything I just buy it

Really

Oh I do

But I just still buy everything I really want

The European hardcore scenes really vibrant and thriving at the moment well that’s what it seems like where as the American scene they are signing up a set style that’s for the most part commercially viable

The European hardcore you’ve got the really good metal core bands whom far outweigh the talent of the those further afield in my opinion

The skills on the guitar are phenomenal you listen to that split (on my distr.) it blows you away all the talent and emotion fusing classical piano parts with this full out metal song and it works

I like a band that can make me think

I know what you mean I have that with many bands I listen to too when you just put it on and this one part it gives you Goosebumps all over

Like um one of my favourite bands is Good Clean Fun

It is? The one thing I like about Good Clean Fun is there lyrics but music wise (incoherent Dutch mumble) it doesn’t do that much for me because

Its been done before in um a better way

They did though took the piss

That’s why I like it I think that the first sxe bands to take the piss properly

And they did it so well and in a cleaver way most people would have jumped on anyone

We start going off into conversation about this dumb rumour I heard that there’s a sxe gang hanging around Camden and I’m like

“If you wanna make up some more rumours for the mill knows the time”

In this bedroom and we'll see how far it reaches like Holland haha

 Lets make up a good story about the Camden straightedge gang cause I hearted like this one 14 year old kid he was trying to get a beer in then store and they found out and as soon as he got out of the store they started beating him up with baseball bats and stuff and I mean the GUY WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD! ---That’s crazy man

That’s a good story (hahahha we all laugh)

I mean I hang around with a lot of straightedge kids

What’s the straightedge scene like then?

In Holland most of them are open minded and cool but there’s this one guy we always call the “youth crew purist”

Yea?

That’s his name

Aww he’s really nice personally but like on the Internet he’s like this tough guy straightedge kid

Is he?

Yea and oh he hates everything that isn’t youth crew

What’s his name?

Um you might know him cause he’s the guy from Reaching Forward I can name him he’s called artur (I think)

Do you know the band Reaching Forward?

Yea (Reflections again)

But then in the same band you have the bass player who is like totally different kid you know? Really both cool you know I was in a band with him for like one practise (haha)

Different band form harm and miller (I really cannot spell Dutch names) the other guitar player

How are you finding the travelling? Do you fund it yourselves and is it expensive to do?

You mean like a tour like this?

Yea

It is very expensive like at the moment reflections helped us a lot with getting us on and of course we have to pay them back we had a hotel in London and so that was good

I think you need one there

Yea its just I think its also for safety with the van

If we can tout it anywhere safe someone has to sleep in it.

And of course taking the boat was never cheap and renting the van was like I think we’ll have to pay like a thousand euros (roughly £500) when we go back then we also got a den in the van (chuckles) oh no! Yea were going to have to pay for that as well did you see the ticket? You got a parking ticket also on the other car? Oh right were very lucky about this tour cause were doing only four shows but the one show wit AFI in London Astoria is paying us a huge sum of money like the biggest amount

Yea were going to get paid a lot of money so well go back and would have made some money

At this point I dribbled don't ask why (I was ill!)

We all laugh AT ME

Have you ever been there I was on Saturday to see Reel Big Fish (all the bands sucked that day cause of crap sound not cause they are bad bands)?

I hate Ska

They were shit the sound I mean

It’s a really big place

The stage you played last night times that by about 6

It’s going to be a good experience for us.

What sorts of bands play there?

Mainstream bands like Reel Big Fish (Foo Fighters, Incubus, Slipknot, and POD)

That’s mainstream in England you see like in Holland they might get 100 kids nothing like that.

We went to try and find information on the Internet about it but couldn’t find anything.

You have to go to www.meanfiddler.com (Next to the London Astoria is the Mean Fiddler which used to be the London Astoria 2)

They put on Reading so what you wanna do is like (“In overly confident voice) Hey were Face Tomorrow and slip them a CD

(The bands laugh) no I don’t think were ready for that sort of thing yet

(I point out the good exposure they are getting through playing the AFI shows)

I don’t want to say you guys have a commercial sound but your not like (break to think off comparison) Earth Crisis are you easier bands to swallow than what lies in my CD collection (at least 60% hardcore punk / beatdown / metalcore) we’ve got pop structures in most of our songs so I think you’ve got the influences they but also I think you’ve got the hardcore influence as well

Were not doing that on purpose it came out that way. Like when we first started out we made our own CD and we got 1000 copies made which is alot and we had them all stacking up in our house and were like we’ll never gonna get rid of them. Then like a couple of months they all sold out (A couple of months?)

Did you do a better recording with Reflections then cause I assume its basically the same songs?

No not really when we recorded you see we weren’t on Reflections yet! But we payed for the recordings ourselves and that’s why we got a really good deal with them cause we paid for the studio.

Do you know if they pay most of their bands to go into the studio cause in the UK (and I’m not completely show if all of the following is correct but) some UK labels or if I do it cause I manage a band called Proudhon and am planning to do their CD for them there is some kind of law in England where like its better if the band owns there own music by like paying for their recording rather than the person with the small independent so much tax (What like ownership) yea

Its basically the same in Holland if you’re a label and you want to own the rights to the songs its really hard Reflections doesn’t do any of that sort of stuff

Is that why you could give you songs to compilations for example?

Yea well you see we kind of made a contract for one record and just because I don’t know were probably doing the second record on Reflections as well just because we have to deal with Reflections for one record we have the rights to our songs because we paid the studio and we made like a contract that says this CD / order we can use the songs for other compilations with permission we have on song that we use for all the compilations.

I think the next records we are going back into the studio like in July or something like that

Do you know roughly how many copies of the album you have sold?

Not the amount of money the amount of units that have been shifted?

We had 750 CD’s personally and its almost sold out so that means we have about 50 left and we sold about almost 3000 CD’s now (via Reflections?) Yea, which is for a Dutch band being on Reflections, is big.

How many do they normally shift?

Well the biggest they shifted was like 25hundred (2500) the Shark Attack CD there not shifting that many cause like the ads and layouts you would think Reflections is a huge label..The colours and vibrancy in the designs and the impression that Reflections give as do a lot of the smaller labels that they shift thousands upon thousands of CD’s

They don’t

I know there’re like home run and stuff and that they are an independent but just the way they go about their business operations its so professional

Yes that because they want

They obviously take a lot of pride in what they do

Yea exactly what they do and they are also into like getting bigger because they feel they are doing a good thing and I think they are doing a good thing as well they just wanna get like more attention. Become on eof the bigger European labels and I think they are pretty much on their way.

To me they are like the best one in Europe I know their Goodlife also

What is your opinion of Good life?

I’ve met the guy who runs Goodlife (Edward?) but there are a lot of stories around about what he does and I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.

I just keep myself out of it cause its usually just rumours and you can never tell what is either true or false – its not my kind of music the sorts of bands that are on Goodlife, It used to be I used to like Morning Again –(You don’t like Waking Kills The Dream? –Kevin Byers is vocalist ex Morning Again) I haven’t heard it yet I heard some good stuff Aabout it.

I love Kevin Byer’s voice

The singer from Morning Again yea but Damian Moyale (I hope that’s correct?) and on Hand of Hope the first one (did he? -I didn’t know that)

Damion Moyale is from Culture and As Friends Rust he used to sing in Morning Again

(Someone else fields this next part)

Used to be really straightedge but fell big time

We played with them sometime in Holland and the day after we played again in Germany cause we wanted to see the concert and the guy was so drunk whiskey and..

All the straightedge stuff and the not straightedge stuff I mean everyone should just go their own way cause it just becomes this “issue” what I liked about straightedge when I got into it nobody around me was straightedge I just made that decision for myself and nowadays you have a lot of young kids start getting into it cause they look up to the older kids (maybe they haven’t tried drugs/alcohol) for me straightedge was always something against peer pressure because in hated that stuff I didn’t want to be d5rinking and smoking because everyone was doing that and that’s not a good reason to do it cause everyone else is.

If you wanna do stuff like that you have to do it for yourself you know? And so that’s why I got into straightedge and had been straightedge for 5 years and then after a while I got really bored with the entire scene like the kids I don’t know were really annoying towards people who weren’t straightedge

(Young kids or was it all the ID's?) Mostly its like the young kids who just got into straightedge and they’re screaming loud as you know

What’s funny the girl who talked / interviewed you last night she was going around screaming straightedge in your face to people

Yea I mean stuff like that

It just sums it up

Straightedge In theory is like a brilliant thing you know the way Ian Mackay men’t it is what I feel is that was a good way but then all these e bands came around and you’ve got the youth crew and the gangs and the yo0u got like (macho tough guy impression) “oh if your straightedge you’ve got like oh you’re a tough guy” oh and you better be straightedge and I’ll be tough as well you know its just stuff like that its plain stupid, it’s a decision you make for yourself and the little group thing you get this whole straightedge groups and there like oh that guy isn’t straightedge anymore fuck him you know its just stupid.

That’s why I kind of like started hating the straightedge crew mentality (that actually was one of the things that got me into it haha the sense of belonging and pride) I wasn’t into that at all.

I got into it because of the bands, which is the only way I would have heard about it. BBC made a documentary (about 3 years ago) which included a lot of people influential in starting the sxe scene.

You mentioned earlier about the recording of a second album have you got new material for it and

We were playing some new songs yesterday (at the show) we have about 6 songs finished I think but were trying to get like a whole bunch of songs were going g to record them all and finally have some songs to put on compilations that aren’t on the record and stuff like that.

What about tours

Were heading across Europe next

Whereabouts are you playing?

Starting off in Germany then heading to the Czech Republic

Should be interesting

Yea we’ve been there before

I’ve been to Germany for two weeks with my family when I was eight years old and the Czech Republic's next door isn’t it? It’s very beautiful

The people there are crazy as well cause they don’t give a shit who you are there just like "oh that’s good music” and just go crazy like in Holland the crowds just like ”oh we don’t know that band” and they'll all be just watching and looking at it

You mean pacifist?

But the Czech Republic was great

In Holland is there an image issue?

I think a lot of people in the Holland hardcore scene are getting old so they stop moving around

You need a new breed then?

Like al ages shows?

Yea

Every single show no matter how shit the band (not that that’s often mind) you’ll have like 10 fuckin going nuts

See that’s cool the shows in Holland

And the funny is thing, most of them don’t have a clue what there singing about or care about the subliminal messages it could be about (and this sounds dumb I know!) chopping peoples arms off and shooting people in the head

And they'll be like (best impression of a stoner pre-pubescent teen) “oh yea man this is fucked up” and they’ll be sticking there thumbs going yea I love you and can I have your pick and it’ll be the warm up act and some random Swindon guy with an acoustic guitar (so ok a tiny exaggeration of the truth!)

We do a lot of shows outside of the hardcore scene, no there not bigger but sometimes better cause you get 14 year old nu metal kids when I was young when I was 14 I listened to nu metal and nirvana, I was one of the “nirvana kids”

-Don’t worry I was as well (so to was DJ morph that’s MATT CARTNER) I have like all the really rare vinyl I think that’s the problem today though if you take a look at all my CDs there is an actual variety Long Beach Dub All-Stars against 25 TA Life, Hed PE, The Suicide File or Sidekick or Gorilla Biscuits or Brothers Keeper you know I mean its within the alternative scene but there are lots of different genres in that and then also sub – genres!”

Hey this is diversity for you (the band noticed my tickets stubs (remember this is a representation of my whole life!) Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Jackson, Bowling For Soup, Incubus, Bob Dylan (every year when he’s on tour with my parents) Madball.

That’s cool cause in the hardcore scene

(I interrupt)

I think (not that I am any authority on music) there get exposed to the new fade or trend one year like last year ska this year its post-hardcore, has any one else noticed this trend for hardcore bands?

Not as much as in England but yeas we get them in Holland I've been reading a lot of English magazines and they hype a lot where as in Holland things don’t get hyped up as much

In England there seems to be this tradition of hyping bands a lot there was this band called Miss Black America

(At this point I really didn’t know who they were or still to this day)

Name’s new favourite band (yea like they know fucking what is music)

I detest me so much!

They are weird

Same with the vines though cause their crap

I think the mainstream have a thing with crap bands look at the sex pistols weren’t exactly talented musicians (very sarcastic) yet they sold millions of records and the definitive punk band or certainly they are for those twats in offices across the country who leave in the past and need to be beaten (TN-S)

There weren’t that original either there were so many years before them doing the same thing I mean Bob Dylan 20 years before up the up roar caused when he and other folk singers changed from acoustic to electric guitars.

Or was it Elvis I’m confusing myself it was both I believe

He was just a puppet though almost everything from the 50’s is like manufactured I think Buddy Holly was one of the first people from that era went into the label I said no your no0t getting me any songs I wanna write my own songs and they were like (low toned gasp) write your own songs?

Are you crazy? It’s where the word A&R comes from Artists and Repertoire the guys the A&R manager finds an artist and then he finds the repertoire for it. I think it’s a tradition but its like there see all see programs like pop idols but that’s been going on ages

I loved to see someone with like Jamey Hatebreed's style vocals just go up there …

Didn’t one guy do that? The singer from AT-The-Drive-In or something (daftest impression follows) and we all laugh in the Dutch idols version we had this old guy who like did my way the sex pistols way or something like that but I didn’t see it cause I don’t watch tv.

There was also this one guy who said I can only sing with the headphones on he took his walkman put on his headphones and started singing but when anyone sings with headphones it absolutely sounds like crap 9it was like aiaiiiiiiiioooooooahhhhhiiii feeeeell likke a aaa (you know trying to explain and translate both pained expression on your face and the demented wail is going to be the most impossible thing everyone rolls around laughing).