X

X

10/12/04
Supporting Lamb Of God
Mean Fiddle
London, UK

How are you doing and how has the last year been since the release of Haymaker? (And the dvd Forever, Together, United)
It’s been quite crazy actually, we’ve been a band for 7 years and not a lot of people know that, because this is the first year we’ve decided to become a serious band and really go for it. Tour and I think the past year has definitely been our biggest year and it’s definitely had a lot of ups, not so many UP’s & down’s just a lot of positive things, we did Ozzfest which was a great experience, we shot our first video & we’ve come to the UK twice this year, so that’s quite an accomplishment.

How many times have you been to the UK?
Only once (before) and that was with Eighteen Visions, 2 & ½ years ago I think

So playing Ozzfest must have been a really surreal experience given, like you say the bands humble beginnings and not really serious either, so you must have had a blast what were the highlights of doing those shows?
It’s a whole different thing for us because playing in front of crowds like that we’ve only done at festivals like Hellfest, Furnacefest and whatever a handful of smaller festivals. Ozzfest was incredible for a lot of different reasons, I mean every day we would do a meet and greet where we would meet fans and people like that. Not only were there a lot of straight edge and hardcore kids going to spend money on Ozzfest this year, which is kind of a lot of money to get in, but it says a lot that people are that interested to come and see us and a couple of other bands. We also had a lot of people who definitely weren’t straight edge who came and talked to us about how we had touched on there lives or family and friends things like that. That was great, meeting and hanging out with bands like Slipknot and just things that we thought that that world was so different and larger that it actually was and we feel that it’s been bridged, quite a lot and everyone on the second stage hung out

Who was on the second stage?
Slipknot, Lamb Of God & Hatebreed headlining, we had us, Unearth, Atreyu, Bleeding Through, God Forbid (the last couple of names I couldn’t make out…)

Had you played with many of those bands before?
It was cool because yeah, within hardcore with played with pretty much all of those bands. It was great because it was such a kind of intimidating experience when we first got there, it was very professional and to have so many friends and so many people we were already comfortable with going through the same things as us, we almost attributed it to like the first day of high school.
It was the first tour we’ve done by ourselves on a bus, it’s basically out of necessity because you would lose your sanity & you pretty much couldn’t do it in a van.

Most hardcore bands write in a way that makes kid’s want to empower themselves, that’s just what I take in anyway, get to know the lyrics and embrace them – what feelings do you get from a live set? Absorbed in that moment with the energy of the crowd and the kid’s singing along?
When we write our song’s to impress upon lyrics and things that are important to us like we collectively get together and talk and discuss these idea’s and then those evolve into lyrics and from that point seeing a show with kids going crazy and singing along with like so much conviction and just the whole look and feel and experience. I think a lot of times even Raise Your Fist years and years ago Keith came to me with the idea & the lyrics and he says there’s this sing-a-long “raise your fist in the air; drug free” and I’m thinking like that sounds like the cheesiest thing ever and I was like, are you sure about this?

It’s probably the most requested live song isn’t it?
It’s one of our most anthemic songs; so many people draw a lot from that song

That’s the one I think I connect with most, being straight edge and all that, songs like that introduce new people to that idea
Like I said to me at first I was a little shut off and I’d doubt people would get into it but as a band you go through so many idea’s obviously it did come into play and I’m really glad that it did because it’s meaningful to a lot of people.

Why has there never been a better time to become involved with both hardcore and straight edge?
As far as a commentary on the hardcore scene nowadays as an example I’ve been involved for the better part of a decade and we’ve all seen a lot of changes, things coming and going in hardcore. It seems right now in the states hardcore is definitely at it’s biggest I mean the fact that Hatebreed just got nominated for a metal Grammy is just unheard of! You know what I mean? It speaks volumes about their band & work they’ve put in. I would say in regards to fanzines and bands everyone is trying to rally to kind of make it to another level. For so long & I think a lot of bands stay and want to keep it in garages but I think there is also a big push right now to get a fanzine that is black & white to a magazine that is full colour, distributed nationally or internationally because like ultimately you are getting the message out to that many more people. Or for a band, for that matter if you had anything to say in your lyrics. Us as a straight edge band, obviously we love fan-base but we love all of our fan-base because if we only played for straight edge kids 100% of the time then we would be preaching the message to the people that are already converted you know? And it’s by going out and doing Ozzfest and touring with bands like Lamb Of God & Hatebreed that people come to us and get into the music first and foremost but then after that they go back and read our lyrics and have something to gain from that. Si I think for a band like us that’s why we try to do crossover tours and spread our message

Do you think you get the message across? Like the amount of people that you had come up to you at Ozzfest…
To me still, the most rewarding thing about this band, I love live shows, I love a lot of things about this band but to me still the most rewarding thing is when we get an email that comes from the heart you know, that really is genuine and someone talks about how our lyrics have helped them in a point of there life.

That something you say could affect someone somewhere else in the world
Yeah, To me that’s the satisfaction for doing this band because if your up there all night and making mosh calls and whatever and no one really gains anything, which sometimes its nice to know that people can actually stand to gain from listening to our lyrics

When the band first started back in ’97, I mean obviously you probably didn’t expect to get to this stage, it was always a straight edge band from the start, how did you go from that not-to-serious new band stage to making records with Indecision
So the history? Cause you said back in ’97 we started as a straight edge band & just doing a record I think there were kids that were waiting for us to fall, to sell-out. On that note we started as a straight edge band, we will never not be a straight edge band we will continue to be a straight edge band – just for the record. In ’97 we started out mainly because a couple of our friends were doing bands at the time and we started our own band basically just for fun, to start a mosh band for our friends that had grown up in hardcore to just go and dance and have a good time. At the time I was working at Revelation Records and I met Dave Mendel and started becoming friends. He was like yeah you know I’ll release your demo and 7” on CD and just kind of see how it goes and see you know, no strings attached, no business, no drama, just to do us a favour. And from there the first CD we had our friends the Throwdown dance team kind of coming for the big joking aspect but then somewhere along the lines more and more people showed up and it was less of our friends at shows and more random people.

What were the first big tours like around America?
We tried it from the ground up, I booked our first U.S. tour pretty DIY I remember one time Rick from 25 Ta Life paid us literally in change cause that’s all the guy had, it was cool. I mean it was terrible it was a nightmare but it was so much fun because it was just kids out on tour without, there was no drama…

How old were you then?
17 I think and after that we went on a U.S. tour with 18 Visions cause we share (band) members and were friends, it was just great because we’ve come so far and a lot of people I’m this industry hardcore bands or you know popstars become jaded because its kind of tough

What’s it like being up there cause your effectively on show, up on stage and if your saying something like your “drug free” your also putting yourself on that pedastool, I’m not talking about pressures I’m just talking about it must being difficult always being in the limelight?
In a way, I think the straight edge thing we do our own thing, we’d rather give props to our fans who support us because of that reason. I think the hardest thing on earth when your going to talk about pressures is the aesthetic pressures from people who mock us or even straight edge kids who mock us for not being

At the moment you guys are probably the most successful straight edge band, promoting it and in a way carrying the torch, so how does that make you feel? There are obviously other successful bands like Champion, The Promise, Stand & Fight but being on Trustkill and how successful they’ve become as a label they’ve really been able to get behind there bands and make sure there all advertised and well known
Were not going to go around wearing a belt that says best straight edge band or whatever, I guess you could say that we’ve worked hard, we’ve been around for a while as well. I guess what I would say in regards to that is for one we don’t really take a militant stance on things like Earth Crisis. We are very serious in what we are doing but at the same time were not going to condemn friends or family and we’ll keep them close to us whether or not they’ve had problems. Ultimately it’s more about solving them than shutting them out of our lives.

Do you feel that maybe bands like Earth Crisis that did take a militant stance on things not took it a bit to far but alienated kids who weren’t straight edge or unsure
I always kind of explain this analogy in interviews because it seems quite powerful and kind of truthful, kids at Ozzfest asked us why we didn’t X up at shows anymore and I think a part of that in all honesty, we do these cross-over tours to kids who aren’t straight edge, the X is (either hard or tired – couldn’t make that out). It’s a symbol & there’s a lot of symbolism in the world right now, the crucifix or like the Nazi Swastika. People see those violent things and they’ll tun off instantly, if people can automatically pigeonhole you and label you as a straight edge band or a straight edge person they might not get into what you are doing simply based on that fact. We’ve kind of taken the route where we decided to try getting these people into our music and watch the show, be entertained and have fun and then through the lyrics, reactions from shows or through email, anything really getting to the heart of the subject matter is better than to just see us on stage with X’s and just shut off.

That kind of answered one of my questions, I was going to ask is X’in up at shows important to you?
Its kind of weird because I know it’s a very important part of the lifestyle for a lot of people like I said I’ve been straight edge for over a decade. I think when your first into it your very gung-ho about things as you grow older literally it becomes part of your lifestyle. I’m at the point know at 26 years old to throw X’s on my body in tattoo form because it’s something I stand for but as far as the actual X’in up it’s lame to hear but on another personal note why I stopped a lot of the times was cause I have a habit of doing this (motions the back of his hand towards the forehead in a brushing back fashion which would leave a mark) when I’m sweating and I always get this nasty black mark across my head. I try to live my life and a lot of people say

As you get older do you feel yourself and your views changing from when you first got into hardcore?
Yeah of course, knowing what I know now as aposed to when I first got into hardcore it’s so different and getting back to your topic about straight edge bands and how were one of the biggest straight edge bands or whatever because there’s a balance I think. You have bands like Champion & The Promise they do it really well but I know some of those guys and I know they have part time jobs and they don’t do there bands 100% full time because living the lifestyle where your playing small DIY shows and dancehalls, things like that literally won’t pay for your bills to the point where like k9ids in some city will say why don’t you come to my town and the truth of the matter is that you can’t make it there because financially your not getting your end of the bargain held up.

Going back to what I was saying about getting older this is the sort of time where your getting married and buying property, maybe have kids if you have to support a family and pay a mortgage not everyone could do that…
When I was a younger straight edge kid just going to shows, I mean I had that idea of why do bands sell out, do these bigger tours and shows. Now I know that that is the reality, you can only afford to do these smaller club tours, you know all the time before people are burnt out and it’s hard you know.

I’m interested to know did you ever do a zine or label?
Yeah and you do it for the love of just doing it, I've done all that, the fanzine and I’ve put out records and done out demos things like that. You’ve got a do it to a degree for the love of hardcore and what you are trying to push. But like you said in the same sentence as you get older you have to be able to at some point support what you are doing

I don’t think it’s a case of being disillusioned I think its more of a case that, you learn from your mistakes – so like when I did my zine and its cost a bit of money to get made up clearly I’m not going to do another one if there’s no guarantee that people will be interested to see that I think there always comes a time when you have to access your options as to whether you want to do it and if you can continue to do it. I guess it must be quite humbling for you guys to keep doing this after so many years
Yeah, no definitely when I think back to when we first started its actually mind blowing, its more so because we didn’t ever think we were going to get outside of southern California

To think of all the county's you’ve been to now…
Not Africa or South America yet but we’ve talked about it. It’s just the safety factor we want to play for every one and every where literally. Yeah it’s great having people from other countries actually knowing our music

You get many emails from kids in Africa and places like that?
I wouldn’t say, as much, it’s hard because they really have to search stuff out because of the lack of exposure and distribution. We definitely get emails from kids in third world countries and very obscure areas and were excited to see that.

I’m interested to know also what do your family and parents think of you guys travelling the world on tour?
It’s funny because last year Dave and me just finished up with college – Throwdown’s always been a hobby in between work and school.

What did you both study?
Dave & me went to the same university and we did communications, I did entertainment and he did publicity things like that. So we were finishing up last year and my mum she was always against us doing this band saying you need to get focused on your life, finish college and do stuff. Kind of like what I guess everyone goes through, so I was experiencing a lot of that and it was only at the start of this year when I was finishing up with college that I was starting to succeed and just be able to pay my own rent from this band. She got more supportive, I think parents always worry and they just want the best for their kids. I could probably go a step further now and say that she is proud that all the members of the band & the band is a straight edge band and that we have continued to press that issue and try to be life changing for some people.

Was there anything in your childhood that was the reason for you getting into hardcore and Straight Edge? Did you ever drink at all?
Yeah

I became straight edge a couple of weeks after my eighteenth birthday, which is the legal drinking age over here, so before when I drank I was underage and when I came to being actually able to legally buy a drank I gave it up
That’s funny I’m the same route actually, me & Dave had a bit of partying I guess, whatever drinking and smoke a little marijuana here and there back in high school, In our younger years of high school. I think every teenager is trying to find himself or herself, you know? And in doing so a lot of people it kind of bothers me and Aaron from Bane has touched on this that a lot of 16 year old hardcore kids will rant and rave what straight edge is about yadda yadda and they haven’t actually gone out and tried a drug or any type of alcohol and the truth is you don’t really know what’s out there I’m trying to be controversial when I say this. It’s just that it’s a thing of life where

Arguably most people go down that road and maybe should go down…
I mean I’m not going to press for that because I know people who’ve been straight edge since birth (off the top of my head Chris singer from Stretch Arm Strong) everything’s relative for other people but for me personally I had to get into straight edge because I had a bad experience myself. In regards to drugs, all that I’m saying is that I was smoking marijuana for a period of time and the last time I had smoked marijuana I had gotten to a point where I felt like I was losing my sanity, you know and I felt like I never wanted to be outside of my head again I wanted to be clear in though and be in control. For me I was like I have to stop this. That was the catalyst for me being straight edge. About other people I think Matt is one of them that has never touched a drop of alcohol or anything in his life and for him that works too.

Maybe it’s the way people are brought up too? I was always brought up surrounded by alcohol via my parents, naturally from about the age of ten I drank lager.
Yeah same for me, my parents are recovering alcoholics, In the states there’s a group called alcoholics anonymous which is a support group, which also deals with hospitalisation etc.

They have those other here too
Yeah, and they both went through that programme because they wanted to clear up there act and fortunately for me I was able to clear up my act a lot younger and hopefully with my teaching to my children maybe they won’t even have to go through some of those problems.

I already know you have a straight edge tattoo cause I can see it on your arm hehe, is it just the one you’ve got out of interest? My first tattoo I got a couple of months ago now - straight edge from shoulder to shoulder. It’s something I always wanted to have done and to do. It was something I thought about for a long time, becoming straight edge and over a period of time, I got more and more into it and eventually stopped drinking. The thing that annoys me continually is all these younger kids who are over zealous about straight edge, claim it, don’t take it seriously and fall off and disappear, the kids that turn up one day with X’s on there hands and then the next moment there gone
Its funny actually that you went through exactly the same thing that I went through, my first year or maybe two years I didn’t call myself straight edge 1) I didn’t want to feel like a phoney and 2) I saw a lot of that going on, a lot of hypocrisy and I didn’t want to be look like that, I could see people being really gung-ho about it I didn’t want to attribute myself with that. I’ve always wanted to get the Coca-Cola straightedge on my back (don’t know if you can still get them but there is a straight edge T-shirt design in a mock Coca-Cola logo style) but I haven’t had a chance. This I took it from The Promise lyrics from My True Love (7”)

Have you toured a lot with The Promise?
Um, no we’ve only done select shows and one small west cost tour but there great dudes whom we’ve grown up with and have known fore ever so (for those that don’t know The Promise features former members of past great sXe bands One King Down, Another Victim & Conviction)

What does Straight Edge mean to you, I don’t suppose the definition has changed much over the years, are you vegan or vegetarian?
I’m not, I was a vegetarian for seven years mainly to try and see if I could just do it. Self discipline

That’s one of the reasons I got into straight edge to prove to myself that I could do that, I used to drink quite a lot…
On that note that’s great, for me I attribute some of the greatest drinkers becoming the best straight edge people or vice-versa and straight-edge people become the best drinkers. And also with religion, I’m Christian and I see a lot of people that are just crazy anti against religion and then become ministers you know? I think there’s that curiosity involved in the other extreme to whatever it is you doing.

(The tape cuts out, flip it over but the talking has already started I think the question was evidently based upon what the band had been going through recently where some kid went and bought the domain name www.throwdown.com when the band failed to renew it and then demanded money for it…)
We don’t know much about that here in the UK and I’ve just read it via the Trustkill page and obviously I’ve tried to go on your website…
It’s been a nightmare, the new web address if www.throwdowngo.com the reason being is Keith used to do our website and kind of came late on the payments and because of the server problems and things so this kid just went and bought the site hoping that for some reason we would have a ton of money to give them (laughter breaks out at the stupidity of idiots like that) so we said fuck it, you can have it!

Do you know who the guy is?
Yeah I guess we have our address and name, we don’t care

It must have been a bit of a surprise?
It’s just kind of funny because you always hear those things

Did someone email you then?
No we found out who the person was, some hardcore kid

Really? (I was genuinely shocked that it was a kid supposedly into hardcore)
I guess they just figured like “oh maybe they’ll give me some money” and we were like (Que. the I don’t give a fuck American style mocking tone, with a hint of Californian drawl) “take it dude” we’ll make another website and figure it out.

Stupid question time, did you bring your advent calendars on tour with you?
Bring what? What is that?

You know advent calendars at Christmas time you count day each day of December – there’s chocolate behind each window (I start laughing) well obviously didn’t bring one if you don’t know what I’m talking about! Ah man
Do you not do all that in America (me forgetting here that end of November is Thanksgiving)?
I’ve seen it in movies but I’ve never…

I but in with – What’s your favourite Christmas movie?
Mine’s got to be Bad Santa; It’s great it’s a total joke on a lot of stuff that’s going on, we don’t take ourselves too seriously

You must have some great tour stories, what pearls of wisdom have you picked up whilst on tour?
Oh and has Ben got over his scabies?
(Starts laughing – see the Trustkill band diary)
How does a person get scabies?
Um yeah, I guess in all honesty we don’t actually know if it was scabies, it was sort of a skin infection, whatever, but I personally think and its funny because we were just doing a piece downstairs that’ll show up in metal hammer soon about working out on the road things like that. Ben gets into some dingy situations, where he will lay down on the floor, with no shirt, things like that and I think its because of that that he picked that up. The pearls of wisdom thing, I would say its really hard for a lot of hardcore bands to rent, being successful is a relevant term but being able to live off a band or just make it a hobby I would say that bands coming up really need to decide what there focus is. A lot of can live with having part time jobs and doing tours for fun and things like that which is a great thing, Then other people like us, when we decided to try and do this full time, living off of the band I think it is very hard, you need to have people that you trust because there’s a lot of people trying to screw you over all the time and I mean just I guess as a hardcore kid pearls of wisdom don’t believe everything you here in the rumour mills

Or msgboards…
A lot of us you might think, it’s funny how a lot of people hold bands up in a higher regard because there these special people, a lot of the times especially hardcore bands you can just sit and talk with anyone.

That was one of the things that really attracted me to hardcore the fact that everyone is equal, that I could interview bands whom I really liked, keep in contact and over time gain friendships with these people I’d meet at shows – that’s kind of a good reason behind doing a zine, label or website – it’s fun to do as a hobby
Have you ever had a tour mascot, like an animal…?
Nah just our roadies,

The Throwdown dance team, have you always had the same guys (roadies)?
No when Dave and me were finishing up with college the people you see in the dvd Biggie & Johnson, there people too so they had to go find work. Johnson’s had a good offer now, he works with Bleeding Through full-time & Biggie is full time with Eighteen Visions.

So it’s a shame because cause you said that Johnson was the cornerstone of turning you all around if you were feeling down, a joker
Yeah we have someone with us that is a great dude kind of the fill in for Johnson, which is hard because he has big shoes to fill bit he’s just a lunatic and his insanity keeps us safe.

You must need a lot of amusement out of tour because of the time involved travelling from show to show especially if you’ve travelled for days…
Mostly spent torturing our roadies (laughter) were talking about getting tour hamster, letting him run around the van

You’ve been talking to Daniel from Norma Jean, right?
Oh yeah, yeah yeah we talking about getting tubing all around the van

When you were a kid do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? Did you have ambitions for being in a band?
Its kind of funny and ironic, me and my friend when we were, young like thirteen or whatever we kind of messed around and played Sabbath covers, things like that. His dream was to be a rock star because we grew up in the scene with Motley Crue & Metallica, heavy metal bands and he wanted to have the heavy metal lifestyle and its very unfortunate because maybe five years ago or so (pauses) he died of a heroin overdose & it’s because for me I would have wanted him…he was my best friend growing up (pauses) for years of my life, I would have loved him to have seen me living the quote unquote rock star lifestyle and it’s almost like I’m living out his dream which is really weird.

I always wanted to be a fireman or policeman and that’s what ill probably end up doing, but I’m indecisive with finding a career, think everyone is. I currently as part of my job in the pathology department in the local hospital take blood form people and its not like I grew up thinking that I wanted to become a vampire!
I thought I wanted to be a psychologist or working with people and helping people it’s weird doing this what were doing right now like I said I get personal fulfilment when I find out that we are touching people. That people are getting stuff from us, which is great.

The banter continues but the interview comes to an end. I had an awesome time chatting with Dom something I’d men’t to way before and I as usual left with a sense of fulfilment that I had been able to touch upon some of the subjects that interested me about him and the band. The Mean Fiddler isn’t my favourite London venue by any means but since the group was supporting Lamb Of God there were so many kids there that I guess the show needed that size of venue, I for one hope the band continues on and await the next release with an unnatural hunger. You gotta love Throwdown, check them out & stay posi Phil xXx