So you have a new release out. whats all about and how does it sound?
It’s a split with Holland’s infamous No Morality, a group of men that make entourage look like sesame street. Our song is called Godz Silenz and it’s about drinking and smoking when last year you had a go at someone for drinking and smoking. The second person singular in this instance being myself. It sounds like the worst parts of nickleback and megadeth according to hardcore luminary darlo dean, and I’m inclined to agree with him.
What made you begin to think drinking etc was a fine thing to do and are any of deal with it still straight edge?
What makes you think that I think drinking IS a fine thing to do? I’ve got the same brain in my head now that I did two years ago, the only difference being that on occasion I can manage even greater heights of self loathing. Obo is still nailed to the x, and kirky never was. Good on them.
As far as your lyrics are concerned, how do you think they have changed since the early days of DWI and do you think they have progressed to fit your change in sound?
Yeah they’ve definitely changed and progressed, but that’s a natural process, the lyrics I wrote on the demo were the first lyrics I’d wrote for anything, so of course they were gonna be more snotty and to the point than something I came up with 4 years later. I like all the lyrics I’ve written though, its cool to read through and feel like I would be happy doing any of our songs live cos I can still 100% dig em, even something like last days which people (falsely) attribute to straight edge. Except maybe atlas shrugged, wrote em in a hurry and I feel like you can tell. Newer songs are perhaps going even more abstract, but I can’t see a problem with it: there’s enough bands out there applying the ‘fisher price band logic’ to their steez that the odd band can get away with singing about quantum reality and existentialism.
There’s been another line-up change recently, could you tell us how it’s changed, why it’s changed and how it’s affected the band?
We kicked out Joe for being a bell. It got to the point in the band where we would spend our petrol money on pizzas and eat them in front of him without buying him any, and when it gets to that point you know something’s gotta give. Kirky from hordes is now on guitar, and its better all round cos he’s a funny lad and he keeps sam happy. He’s not seen any films other than saw 1-5 though which is a bit weird.
About a year ago you decided to split and then get back together again; what made you want to split and what brought you back together?
We split up cos we couldn’t be arsed anymore and got back together about a month later cos we couldn’t be arsed being split up anymore. Probably should have told more people we were back together though, even know people see us on a flyer and say ‘thought yous had split up’
If I am not mistaken you didn’t originally do vocals in DWI, what led to you being the front man?
well the dude that originally did vocals never actually came to practice, so in a way I think it’s like one of those things where you invite a girl to come out with ‘some friends’ and then the ‘friends’ get stuck at home with a vomiting bug or a missing cat. What was hilarious is that pag utterly hated my vocals right up until recording the demo where an awesome switch somehow turned on and I became the epitome of style and sexual energy that we all know and love today.
If someone out of Deal With It pulled a Mayhem-esque murder, who’d be the murderer and who’d be murdered?
The popular opinion would probably be me, as I’m ‘intense’ and ‘affectatious’ as pag likes to constantly point out, but I reckon sam is the most likely candidate. Dude is harbouring some dahmer-esque sensibilities. You should see the hate in his eyes when I rub my cock on his back.
May the 29th marks the end of Dead and Gone Records. How do you feel about this and how do you think this is going to affect the uk hardcore scene?
All good things must come to an end. To me, in all honesty, I think the glory days of D&G have gone anyway. 2006 was a good year, but since then it’s been a bit downhill. I’d like to think DWI are responsible in some small part for collectively bumming out the ukhc population, but I think the real reason is far more dull. Hardcore has got popular, so the need for hardworking, ethically driven independent labels has diminished significantly. The sound has changed as well, no one wants to sound like right brigade anymore, instead one riff and some wacky vocals (guilty as charged) get people fired up over intensity and pure animal rage.
Do you see anyone filling Ian’s shoes in the near future? would you consider starting a label yourself? and do you think anything could resurrect the scene back to its glory days?
Well it looks like TDON are signing up all the new bands that might be going places, but to a certain extent I’m distancing myself from it all. None of these newer, younger bands do anything for me if I’m totally honest; they all want far too much to sound like the cool american bands and not really making any effort to get their own shit going on. Fair enough if I was 17 right now I’d probably be losing my mind, but I’m 25, and would much rather sit at home read a book and listen to the creation records back catalogue.
As for the record label, doghead released the kingdom of fear compilation 7″ last year featuring some bearable uk bands, and it will likely be releasing the superiority complex 7″ and my spoken word LP in the near future, which translates to sometime before 2020.
Also who am I to talk about glory days? The older generation handed me the hardcore baton and I fumbled it like a blind sea cow.
And what’s the truth in Deal With It doing a release with TDON?
Farrel is keen to work with us I think, yeah. I have a lot of time for the guy, for all the shit people who don’t know him say, he takes it very well, and he’s a good bloke. As for doing a record with TDON, we are working on our new LP at the minute which is more than likely going to come out on Rucktion Records (new injury time/ninebar/prowler records in the near future, holy fuck). The guys at Rucktion know their NYHC, they love their NYHC, they live and breathe NYHC, so it would be ridiculous to want to do it with anyone else. Having said that, it is possible that we might release something with TDON in the future, it’ll get our name and sound out to all sorts of kids that haven’t bothered with us before, and for all the shit people talk on metalcore, there’s just as many airheaded pricks into blacklisted and integrity as there are into BMTH.
could you explain what Doghead is for anyone that doesn’t know?
Doghead is my outlet for creative self-crucifixion. Done a couple of zines, published a few stories, released a record, there’ll be a bit here and there sporadically for years to come I imagine. Just don’t hold your breath on anything; I’m an ideas man dammit.
When do you think your spoken word stuff will be released?
Soon I hope. I’m hopefully collaborating with Henry from army of flying robots to put together a slab of sonic filth, the problem is he’s been ready for months while I spend far too much time trying to get a high score on geometry wars. When it’s done it’ll be on an Lp and will be severely limited, like 20 copies or something. Which I’ll struggle to sell.
What topics are you going to cover in your spoken word recordings?
It’s gonna be a story I’ve been struggling to have published for a while, I’d like to say that it’s too ‘extreme’ but it’s more likely that it’s just a filthy piece of shit. It’s called mechanical isolde and it’s about a man who fantasises about a machine that ends up growing inside his head. Kind of like tetsuo the iron man meets kafka, but with a bit more blue language. Soundtrack-wise it’s gonna sound like ktl/swans I hope.
What’s it like being one of the few outspoken characters in UK hardcore?
Never mind outspoken, I’m one of the few CHARACTERS, full stop. When did everyone get so fucking boring? Hardcore kids now are wet as fuck, dull as fuck, quiet as fuck, stupid as fuck, blah blah blah. Heckle bands, dive off a stage, give bell ends a hard time. Enjoy yourselves at a show, mosh like a nob head without having to constantly crowd punch girls to increase your self confidence. Honestly mang, I can’t bear to go to most shows I’d want to these days cos people are just so fucking clueless. Then at the other end of the scale you go to an ‘honest to god’ punk rock show where everyone’s so conceited and self aware I wanna knock myself out. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen mob rules and people just stand there and scratch their chins and contemplate. MOB RULES IS FUCKING MURDER MUSIC YOU CHIN STROKING CUNTS
In your time how do you think the internet has affected the hardcore punk and diy scene?
yeah horribly. I mean back in the day you’d have talked to me in person and this would have been printed on a piece of paper. Instead it’s been conducted on facebook and it’s gonna get copied and pasted into a blog. Isn’t technology a brilliant thing *sob*. Do kids even play out in the street anymore? The world is changing and I don’t like it.
But isn’t Doghead also a blog?
True, but in a very loose sense of the word. When I was arsed about updating it it was to forward articles from elsewhere, in a vain bid to try and build a journalistic portfolio. Now I basically use it to advertise when I have something new coming out, which is hardly ever. The internet can be kind of punk rock, granted, see znet, indymedia, wikileaks, etc. But how often is it actually used for that? It’s an extension of the real world in every way, and so while say 1 percent is being used to fight ‘the man’, the other 99 percent is photoshopped images of michael jackson and ‘epic’ 200 page slanging matches between people who have never met each other. Like music, literature, film, etc, it can be a tool for expression, communication, etc, but more often than not, like the aforementioned mediums, it’s a tool for procrastinance instead. And you can’t cut out a website and stick it on your wall.
What would you be doing if deal with never existed?
I’d be sitting in a quaint little maisonette in somerset with my wife and small child, mulling the day’s news over a cup of coffee. I’d read about things going on in some foreign land but quickly disregard it because when you’ve got a young family you have to think constantly of your own. I’d kiss the wife goodbye and get into my eco friendly bmw for a days work at the office. 2 hours in traffic later I’d arrive at my cubicle and sit down to continue working on the yates report which had to be in last week. As I typed the numbers would flash by me like lines on a road, meaningless yet profound in some uncertain way. I’d sweat and fidget, a tiny recess somewhere in my mind nagging at me that things are not as they should be. Awareness of my finite nature prods and pokes while I try to translate meaningless figures into meaningless business speak. As the hours pass the fidgeting increases, I loosen my tie in response to a feeling of being choked. LIFE IS KILLING ME passes through my head like a bolt from the blue. LIFE IS KILLING ME I return to the thought and form the words in my head, rotate them round like a windows 98 screensaver. LIFE IS KILLING ME LIFE IS KILLING ME LIFE IS KILLING ME the numbers and tables and charts and deadlines are now a far cry away, and when they finally take me from the floor in a pool of my own sweat and vomit, they will say that they never saw it coming, I was so happy, so content with the life god gave me.
What would deal with it be like if cro-mags never existed?
Spiritual and physical laws dictate that if cro-mags never existed something else would exist in its place to deliver the very same thing. Our world without a ‘cro-mags’ would be a physical impossibility, just as our world without lungs, or hydrogen, or time would be equally impossible.
But, leaving physical impossibilities aside for a minute, I would like to think we would go directly to the source and rip off bands like the cult, aerosmith, ozzy osbourne, beastie boys, etc, and come to the same end point.
