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PVRS

Post author By administrator
Post date 28 July 2015

Pvris (pronounced ‘Paris’) are a female-fronted three-piece from Boston, Massachusetts. Following the release of debut album “White Noise” in November 2014, the band have gone from strength to strength, the latest of which is a sold-out headline shows in the UK and a European tour. I caught up with Lynn Gunn (vocalist and guitarist), Alex Babinski (guitarist) and Brain MacDonald (bassist) before their Birmingham show to ask about their European experiences.

This is your first trip to the UK, so what have been your first impressions of the UK?

Lynn: It’s way cooler, everything looks way cooler.

Brian: Things are old.

Lynn: Things have been here forever, more than America.

What has been your favourite part of the UK so far?

Lynn: I really liked Cardiff and London.

Alex: Cardiff was like the only day we had off so we got to explore.

Lynn: We’re going to be going to Bath tomorrow and I’m looking forward to that so that might be my new favourite.

Being an American band, have you been surprised by the level of European support? And I’ve noticed you’ve got a lot of airplay on BBC Radio One recently.

Lynn: Yeah, it’s weird because we can’t really see it over in the States so we don’t like understand it or like see which is kind of cool because when we come over here we’re surprised by it too.

Recently, you’ve been on a lot of big tours, The World Tour in America and you’re touring with Lower Than Atlantis at the moment. Has there been anything those bands have taught you that you’ve really taken on board or any great pieces of advice?

Alex: It’s hard to pick but I’ve definitely learnt.

Lynn: I feel like we’ve learnt something on every tour. The one thing Sleeping with Sirens taught us was ‘don’t take yourself seriously just have fun with it’. They’re super fun guys.

Brian: They’re some of our favourite.

Lynn: They’re major goofballs so…

So obviously you’re back in the UK next month for Slam Dunk.

Lynn: Yeah!

Are there any bands on that line-up that you’re looking forward to seeing particularly or hanging out with?

Alex: Definitely You Me at Six and Taking Back Sunday.

Lynn: Don Broco.

Alex: Just everyone, all those bands. Architects. I was looking down the list and just going ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

And I saw you were at the BBC Maida Vale Studios, can you tell us anything about that?

Lynn: I felt very self-conscious the whole time we were there.

Brian: I enjoyed it, it was cool.

Lynn: It was, everything else was great.

Alex: It went great, but it was so scary being in such a cool place.

Lynn: It was just intimidating knowing who else had been in there so we were like err…

As a band, what would be your biggest goal? Is it headlining foreign tours or headlining your favourite festival?

Lynn: We want to do everything

Brian: Yeah, we want to try!

Lynn: We want to take over the planet.

Alex: I want to play in space.

Lynn: That would be fun. Would sound even work in space? Maybe on a space station?

Alex: I don’t know.

You released the video for “White Noise” in March, how much input do you have into the ideas for music videos?

Lynn: Good to moderate, I’ll usually go to Raul Gonzo, our director, with a concept or basis and then he’ll like explode with it and make it come to life basically and like we’ll give him ideas

Your Empty Room Sessions have proved quite popular. Are there plans to do any more of those or release them all together?

Lynn: Yeah.

Alex: Yeah, yeah definitely.

Lynn: Yeah, we haven’t been home long enough to do that yet.

As the first female-fronted band on your label (Velocity/Rise Records), would you say that’s put a lot of pressure on you as a band?

Lynn: No, we look at it as being any other band. I feel like other people are putting pressure on it.

Brian: I don’t even think about it.

Lynn: We didn’t even know. There are also a couple bands with girls on it, but they’re not like the singers but we’re not the first big girl on Rise.

Can fans expect any new music soon?

Lynn: It’s being made, there’s a lot already recorded, but I don’t know, we don’t know when it’s going out but we would like to release it as soon as we can but it’s not up to us.

Brian: It’s down to other people.

Lynn: But there is, it is being made, there’s already like enough music for a second record. Second, third, fourth, I don’t know. We’re like always making things so. We all have the recording app and then I’ve got like Logic on my computers and these guys are always doing stuff. Everyone’s always doing stuff.

So for the really cliché questions now. What is your favourite song to perform live?

Lynn: “Fire”.

Alex: Mine’s “My House”.

Brian: Definitely “Fire”.

What or who is your biggest musical influence?

Lynn: Me, probably Florence and the Machine.

Brian: Marvin Gaye.

Alex: It’s hard to say now, but growing up all I did was play Underoath songs.

Lynn: Yeah, but for like influences like sound wise I feel like we take stuff from everywhere, nothing specific but those would be our personal influences.

And three words to describe the band for someone who has never heard the band before?

Lynn: Err… Sad, no not sad, moody.

Brian: Dark.

Lynn: and.

Alex: Elegant.

Lynn: I like that.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?

Lynn: My younger self?

Brain: My right hand *slaps hand*.

Lynn: Screw school. That’s what I’d say to my younger self. My younger self was so stressed out at school and I didn’t even need it. Well I probably did but you know what I mean.

Brian: Same with me.

Alex: My advice would be things always work themselves out.

Lynn: Yeah, they do.

– Eloise Doherty

Tags PVRS

The Charm The Fury

Post author By administrator
Post date 28 July 2015

If you’re not familiar with The Charm The Fury yet, you will be in the next year! This metalcore band with a female vocalist/screamer from The Netherlands has been paving its way for a couple of years now and is really marking its place in the scene. So, with the sun shining on our heads and metal music on the background, we at RMP found a nice spot to sit down and have a nice chat with Caroline (Westendorp, vocals), Lucas (Arnoldussen, bass guitar) and Rolf (Perdok, guitar) to talk about their festival experiences, their first full album and how to stand your ground in the testosterone-filled world of metal.

1. You all hail from the Netherlands, can I assume that you all have been at Graspop before as fans? Do you have any fun memories to share with us?
Rolf: Well, to be honest, only our other guitar player, Mathijs (Parent, red.) has been here before. For the rest of us Graspop stood on top of our bucket list but it just never happened. But now to perform here, in front of such a crowd, that was really awesome.
Lucas: But we went to Groezrock!
Caroline: Yes, we went to Groezrock at least 10 years in a row.
Rolf: But to be honest, I like this more.

2. And how is it to perform here as a band?
Caroline: Awesome! You’re performing next to all of your heroes; you meet them in the backstage and have a chat with bands you have been looking up to for the last ten years. And all you can think is ‘Please, don’t say something stupid.’ [laughs]

3. You really delivered a great show today, I really enjoyed it and the crowd did too. But do you see any differences between a Dutch and a Belgian audience?
Rolf: Yes, sometimes we do. We always thought that Belgian people were less feral but we have never been so wrong.
Lucas: Yes, our thoughts were totally wrong!
Rolf: I honestly think that’s also the difference between a core festival and a metal festival. We’ve always been metal fans because it’s commonly known that every metal fan is very kind and the atmosphere is always friendly and when there is a mosh pit everyone helps each other. And that’s what we love. So for us, this is really mind-blowing.

4. A question for Caroline: what does it feel like to stand on a stage between all that ferocious testosterone?
It’s strange sometimes. You really quick get some sort of attention but I think that you can of course be a woman, but you have to be good in what you do too! You have to be able to compete with masculine colleagues so that gives some sort of extra pressure because you have to really prove that you’re worthy. It still is very amusing, but of course you have to work hard.

5. And how did you discover that you could both scream and sing?
I think no one can sing or scream by nature. You really have to practice day after day, year after year to master the right techniques. I’ve always been listening to metal bands and of course there are some frontwomen like Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy but you’ll find very few female-fronted bands in the metalcore genre. And those are the bands I listen to the most. So I was constantly screaming along in my bedroom with male vocalists, which was not at all charming to hear of course. At first I couldn’t scream longer than ten minutes but through lots of practice and persistence I could scream longer and longer.

6. Has it always been your intention as a band to become a female-fronted band?
Lucas: No, not really. I was actually looking for a vocalist together with our drummer, Mathijs (Tieken, red.) and we stumbled upon Caroline and at first she wasn’t that good [laughing] but we thought ‘She looks good and she has a lot of potential so let’s give it a shot.’ We really wanted a band and Caroline crossed our paths and yeah… like Caroline said before, by working our asses off, we all became who we are now and we are over the moon with that!
Rolf: I joined the band later on but I saw everything change too in just two or three years’ time. And then it’s just a delight to be in a band like The Charm The Fury with all of my closest friends.

7. What bands are your greatest influences? You already mentioned core bands, but are there other influences?
Rolf: I think that most of us didn’t get their biggest influence from the core bands but from metal bands like Metallica and Pantera.
Lucas: Indeed, the real old school metal. But in our tour bus we listen to black metal, viking metal, even nineties pop and Eurodance!
Rolf: Yes, we listen to everything, also eighties music for example and luckily we all like all styles of music. Of course we get our main influences from the bigger metal bands we like but we also have a hiphop playlist for example so it really varies. And I think that’s also one of the strengths of this band, that we are not limited to just one kind of music. We really listen to everything and we hope that we can mould all that in what we do. Of course we’re not going to release a hiphop track but…
Caroline: That’s a shame, don’t you think? We actually made a hiphop song a long time ago!
Rolf: Yeah, we made that song just for fun, so we have the liberty to do what we want to do.

8. In 2013 you released your first full album “A Shade Of My Former Self”. You recorded and mixed everything yourselves. How did that go by?
Rolf: I’ve been to Sweden together with our drummer to record the drum parts but that’s actually the only thing someone else did. Most of the rest we recorded at my place, a very large squat where we had the freedom to do what we wanted.
Caroline: Our drummer really has hands of gold. He’s a real studio man. He not only knows a lot about the basic structures of songs but very often he already has the sound for a killer song in his head. But then he has to mix it all because he only knows exactly what he wants and how he wants the sound to be. He records everything, mixes it and then we send the tracks to someone to be mastered.
Rolf: We recorded the pre-amps at his place but he still lives with his parents so we just came to his house, rang the doorbell and said to his parents ‘Hi, we’re here to record our guitars!’ and repeated that for a couple of days.

9. I can tell your drummer has a very clear vision on what he thinks the band should sound like. Is he the great mastermind behind The Charm The Fury or do you all contribute to the writing process?
Rolf: A little bit. Everyone plays his part in the band but Mathijs, our drummer, plays a huge part in the production process and in laying the foundation for the songs. And then mostly I listen to what he has and I try to give the songs my own touch so the songs change a little bit and after that everyone can have his or her say in it. So everyone really plays a big part in their own way. So it’s very difficult to replace someone because everyone contributes so much of themselves.

10. So you’re still playing in the original line-up?
Lucas: A long time before Rolf joined we had two other guitar players but they didn’t look at the band as seriously as we did. But since the band became a serious topic, we haven’t changed our line-up because we felt we could cause earthquakes like this.

11. You released the song “Carte Blanche” as your first single. Was this a conscious choice?
Lucas: It was the choice of our former manager.
Caroline: Yes, we wanted to pick another song.

12. Why did you want to pick another song?
Lucas: Well, it’s very difficult to reimagine the way I thought about things at that time. Our mind-set was completely different then in comparison to now.
Rolf: Yes, if we could choose now, we would have chosen “Carte Blanche” too.
Caroline: Yes, “Carte Blanche” is just easier to listen to than most of our songs and it can really loosen up an audience. At that time, I think we wanted more to show our musical creativity and “Carte Blanche” is far from our hardest song to play.

13. Where do you get the inspiration for your songs?
Rolf: We really get our inspiration from other bands. For example Mathijs, our drummer listens to just one band for a whole week and then he comes to our rehearsal room with a song and says ‘I want to do something like this part of that song,’ and then we start jamming along to his drums.
Lucas: Sometimes it just comes naturally. Often I’m just plucking on my guitar and then Mathijs is jamming on his midi-board and something cool comes along and then we stop and try to work further on that cool riff. But of course we don’t want to just make some riffs or noise, we really want to make songs and that’s what we have to keep in mind all the time.
Rolf: For our last record we really threw away three hours’ worth of material. It just had to fit with another riff so that it became more than just a riff. With all the material we didn’t use, we could easily fill three other records.

14. You’ve been signed with Listenable Records. How does this deal come along?
Lucas: It comes along fine. Of course we’re not a really big band so we don’t talk a lot. It’s just a nice cooperation but we’re not best friends or something like that.
Caroline: They don’t meddle with our musical creativity and when we want to release something they give us advice on how and when to release. So it’s very informative actually.
Rolf: Yes, our contact person comes to as many shows as possible and he tries to be as involved as possible. It’s nice this way.

15. Are there any plans for a next album?
Lucas: We’re first trying to find which way we want to go to.
Caroline: Yes, we’re experimenting a lot and we are trying to reflect on what we really want for us and for the band at this very moment. We’re asking ourselves constantly whether this is what we want or not.
Rolf: We haven’t chosen a clear course yet.

16. So you don’t know where you’ll be in five years?
Rolf: Yes we do! In five years we’re standing on the main stage! No, no, it’s just difficult for now because we focused so hard on this show.
Caroline: And now, we can look further.
Rolf: Yes, we took a conscious choice now by not booking any more shows. We really want to focus on the next chapter.
Lucas: We have been gigging for the last three years and actually you’re supposed to release one album a year so we thought it was time to take a break and reflect on things and make new stuff together.
Rolf: Yes, of course we want to play together. The Charm The Fury is here to stay but we just don’t know yet in what direction were heading.

17. Do you have any tips for starting bands?
Rolf: It depends on what you want. If you just want to play and keep it as a hobby then you just have to enjoy it and you don’t really need tips. But if you want to take it seriously and play at Graspop, well… the way we did it, is that we didn’t release anything or even mentioned our existence until we had something to show. When we had that we made a Facebook page with professional band pictures and a video clip.
Lucas: And our EP!
Rolf: I thought we release that a short time after.
Lucas: Yes, a very short time after, you’re right.
Rolf: Anyway, we had an EP and a lot of people thought ‘This is really good, why didn’t I know this music yet?’. That was of course because we didn’t have anything yet before. And that’s actually a second tip: never release anything that you don’t fully like.
Lucas: Yes, the package has to be complete. That’s in this age really the way to achieve something. You just have to make sure you have to full package and then you just launch yourself into the world like a rocket. Of course that could lead to some negative response. Some people may ask themselves ‘Where the hell did they come from? They’re just an unknown band with a fancy photoshoot and an EP.’ But a lot of them don’t know or manage to forget that we’ve all been involved with music for the last thirteen or so years.
Rolf: Yes, Lucas and I graduated from a musical education as did our drummer so all of our little pieces of experience make a whole lot of experience when put together. But in the end when you can stay noticed in the music scene, you get the respect you deserve. And that’s something we try to do for each gig. We try to win the audience time after time. We’re very humble and we’re the last persons you’ll hear saying that they’re the best band in the world! We don’t even think that but we honestly try to give it our best during each show we do and we hope the crowd sees that.

– Jolien Krijnen & Frederik Geuvens

Tags The Charm The Fury

Millencolin

Post author By administrator
Post date 28 July 2015

Millencollin are one of Sweden’s finest punk export products from the nineties Mälmo scene and still reigning hard with a new album “True Brew” under their belt. This summer they plan on taking Europe by storm again with their unique punk sounds. Time for RMP to have a chat with drummer Fredrik at the magnificent Jera On Air festival about the new album and of course skateboarding since the band name is derived from a skateboard trick. Time to find out how the brew was conceived.

First, congratulations with the new album, “True Brew”. How has the response been?

It's been really good. We're really happy with it and the response and the reactions on the new songs live. It's really nice to have the new album out. We've been working on it for a while and it's nice to be able to play the new songs live.

You played Groezrock in early May, how was that show?

Every time it's super nice to be there. It's like a big homecoming party almost. There's so many bands that you meet up with. This year there were like four or five Swedish bands, a lot of bands we haven't met in a while. It's super great organised. European festivals are in general really good and well-organised.

So “True Brew”, the title of the album is almost a description of some sort of philosophy. Could you explain this to us?

Yeah, I’m actually the one who came up with the title. First of all it sounded very good as a title. I think it fits us as we've always been in charge of everything about the band, it's us four in the band. It's always been the same guys in the band. We have a lot of respect for each other. When we make songs we always say that we are boiling notes,which is like a brew. We have always been true to ourselves too. It’s always good to stand back all the decisions and the music we make. So it fits the album really well.

You also made a great video for the song “Bring Me Home”. The “Life On A Plate” yellow bird is skating around different cities getting into all sorts of problems. Who actually skated in that suit and what cities is it filmed in?

There are several people, it's different in each city. We had a friend of ours making the video. So we travelled around and found some skaters at every location. It's different. Even if you don't know the story about the yellow bird it's like an easy going, funny video. I heard some junkie in NY grabbed one of the skaters.

Millencollin is 100% skate punk, not just in sound and style but actually by really skating. The band name comes from a trick called ‘Melancholy’. How tied up to skateboarding is the band and are you guys personally?

It's probably as big of a reason we are a band, we started a band like the bands we were inspired by like Bad Religion and that stuff. If it weren't for those bands and skateboarding we would have never started a band in the beginning. It's been a huge part. Millencollin is music and skateboarding is skateboarding. I’ve never been a skateboarder; the other three guys all skated back in the days. These days they don't skate as much as before. Matthias and Erik, they skate every now and then. We always let the skate movies borrow our music and we played a lot of skateboard and snowboard events. It fits with skateboarding really well.

Milencollin also have a skate park in Örebro, Sweden?

Back in Örebro we put up skateboarding contests and give some money to this local skate park to keep it running.

So how great was it when Steve Caballero joined you on stage to play bass? How did it happen?

Oh yeah, he's the best of guys. Amazing skateboarder, he's been friends with us for a long time. Every time we meet up at events he ends up on stage with us.

Any other famous skaters/musicians you would love to perform with?

We toured with The Rats (Mike Vallely) like ten years ago. Mike is also a very nice guy. Usually it's some of us playing with other artists, mostly Steve Caballero.

In the beginning of the band you were on Burning Heart records. Over the years they left, but now they're back. Any plans on working with them again?

It's been really good thing to been working with Burning Heart through the years. They have so dedicated people working there. They helped us a lot and we helped them with bringing their name outside of Sweden. We're on Epitaph now and we like it there so that's probably where we are going to release our albums in the future.

Any last words or plans you want to share?

We have a lot of plans. The touring just started but we're super stoked to be out playing live again. We're having such a good time doing that. Really been looking forward for this summer for all the festivals and coming back to Europe in hopefully October or so. Check us out then.

– David Marote

Tags Millencolin

Lagwagon

Post author By administrator
Post date 28 July 2015

“Hang”. If this album title doesn’t sound familiar to your years by now you must have been hiding under a rock by the end of 2014 and still be hiding there. “Hang” is the album title to California, Goleta's finest punk rockers, Lagwagon. We at RMP Magazine already discussed the upcoming album last year in august with Joey Cape at the Pukkelpop festival. But we felt the urge that we needed to talk to Joey again at Jera On Air festival about the epic “Hang” album. From smoking gum to Jeff Mangum, the Caper brings us up-to-date about the entire ins and outs of Lagwagon and “Hang”.

Hello, first off, congratulations with the new album “Hang”. Last time we met you released a teaser track (“Cog In The Machine”), now the album is out for some months. How has the response been during the recent tours?

It's been great. It's nice to have a new record and to play new songs live. The album has been probably as well received as any record we've ever made. We're really enjoying. It's cool, it feels good.

It seems that all the long-time Fat bands are back with killer albums. In 2015 we already had Good Riddance and Strung Out, next up is Night Birds with their first Fat release. Where did this influx of killer music suddenly come from?

It just feels kind of good that some of us old guys are doing this pretty much at the same time. I like that; we're playing a lot of shows with those guys too. It feels good. There was always some sort of camaraderie with the label and over the years that sort of slowly dissolved in a way and I feel like that it's coming back. It's really a nice feeling. Especially since Fat is doing this 25^th anniversary and we're doing all these shows together. It's cool; let's have a little bit of pride in where we come from.

The band has been touring quite extensive lately. A couple of tours in Europe, you played Pukkelpop, Groezrock, now Jera On Air. Is this because of the new album and promoting it?

We might have to take a break. We always tour but once we put a record out it's always about two years of just hardcore touring. I tour a lot when the band is not touring as well. I'm pretty much always on tour.

And One Week Records of course.

I have a five week tour in September and October with the One Week guys. Should be fun.

Last august you already discussed One Week Records and the start-up but since then you have released six records already. What's next with One Week Records?

We're kind of dialling it back right now, rethinking some things. I don't think I will be making a new record until next year. Which is sort of a drag but Lagwagon is touring so much that I can't make time. So I'm trying to figure out a way to get around that.

You just mentioned a drag. That leads into the next question: the song “Drag” on the new album. Do you see yourself ever quitting smoking?

I haven't smoked in five or six years. But I still chew (pulls out nicotine chewing gum). I basically just switched. Chewing gum instead of cigarettes. I actually miss smoking, I really love smoking but my lungs were not happy. I started when I was 13 and I smoked until I was 43. That's why I wrote the song. I thought, in some ways it's the most difficult thing to quit. I tried so many times. Everyone always talks about heroine and crack and speed and all that stuff. Nicotine is just as vicious. Definitely claims more lives. Just seemed like something to write a song about. That song was written quite some time ago; probably the only one song on that record. I wrote it a long time ago. But I found this version I did with the band of the song and right when I heard it I thought “This totally fits Lagwagon.” I don't know why. So I played it for them and they immediately liked it. It worked. And then they made it a lot better.

One of my favourites on “Hang” is “One More Song”, dedicated to Tony and it has a Neutral Milk Hotel reference, ‘My aeroplane forever over the sea’.

I love that you get that. That was a record that Tony turned me on to. We toured a lot together and he was the guy who turned me into Neutral Milk Hotel and Jeff is such a great songwriter. He gave me that record and I was just like… you rarely get turned onto things, if you do what I do. It's rare that I get turned onto something I somehow missed. It's sort of the most important records in my life. He gave it to me. I had to reference it and the last time I saw him I was putting him on a plane.

I've noticed some great shows coming up for Lagwagon soon, like the Fat Wreck 25 years show or the one with Adolescents and Agent Orange. What's next?

Oh yeah, ‘It's Not Dead’ is one show in Southern California.I saw Adolescents recently, still got it, still good. Love those bands. That whole show is amazing. Good Riddance, Descendents; it's insane. I'm going to see how it goes.Because this party is like ‘How the hell are you going to do that many bands in a day?’. There's like forty bands.And they're doing the kind of lottery-thing like on the Warped tour where you don't find out when you play until you get there. I'm actually on another tour at that time. I have to fly in 6 AM to a town near there and then take transportation to the show. Probably show up and play, because we could play at noon for all I know. And then as soon as it's over get back to the airport and back to the other town for the tour. The tour was already booked. So we had to do it and I had to take the day off.

– David Marote

Tags Lagwagon

Strung Out

Post author By administrator
Post date 28 July 2015

Strung Out is back with a new album and it is killer material. Another Fat Wreck band returning to the scene to prove their merits once more! So when the band came over for a European tour at Jera On Air festival in The Netherlands, it was time for RMP Magazine to have a quick chat with main guitar shredder Jake about the new record “Transmission Delta Alpha” and how it's been perceived so far. Find out all about the band that doesn't look back in anger.

Congratulations with the new album, “Tranmission Delta Alpha”. It's been out for a couple of weeks now. How has the response been so far?

Thank you. Very good, all the shows have been really good. Everyone likes the new songs. We've been playing them live and they have been getting a good response. It feels good to have some new material out and have people really liking it.

We just did a big US tour for about a month and a half and we just got here and it's been about four shows and we're here for another month. We have about 25 shows total. Yesterday was a good turnout. It was a good turnout at the big Hurricane festival and a lot of people came by the stage when we played.

The new album took six years to complete. Was it such an endurance to get this album out?

No, we were busy doing other things for most of that time. We did a greatest hits album, we did a boxset. We went out and played our two albums “Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues” and “Twisted By Design” back to back. Did a whole tour of that in America, went to Australia. So we've been doing lots of touring and about a year and a half ago we started writing for the new one. Got it all together, spend about six months on and off recording it. We took some time with it; we didn't want to rush it and make sure it was the right thing at the right time. Sometimes it's good to make people wait a little longer for something.

For the new album you worked with Come Back Kid and New Found Glory producer, Kyle Black. How different was his influence on the album?

It was cool. Every time you work with a new producer they bring something else out of you. They try to get out of you that you're not doing already. He had a good ear for what we were trying to do, he knew where Strung Out comes from and he wanted to keep it a good Strung Out album.It was a very good experience.

Strung Out started in the 90's as west coast skate punk, quickly evolving into more metal riffs and so. How do you see the bands evolution over the years?

Yeah, you always have to introduce new things into your sound I think. You can't just do the same thing every time. Sometimes by doing that you get closer to what you originally were after a while. You try some new things and you also stay true to what you were doing. We wanted to keep the energy up really high on this. Just keep it very uplifting and positive. We always liked metal parts and interesting technical types of riffs. We wanted to put the songs first and make sure it's good, a classic sounding Strung Out record.

The band started out in the skate punk scene, some of the members still skateboard to this day. How do you see the connection between skating and punk rock?

A little bit, we skateboard to get to the store and so. I think it's still out there. Most of the skate videos these days don't use punk rock music anymore. It's all rap and stuff, so that's a shame.

As a kid growing up in California where we came from it's pretty much the soundtrack to it. Going to the skate competitions you'd always hear punk rock and have bands playing. I think that will always be a part of it. I don't know whatever the kids are into today, that's up to them. For us we always keep doing what we grew up being around, which was definitely skateboard-influenced and things like that. I think it works well with the fast pace.

The album comes with beautiful artwork, there's also a painting for every song on the album by Jason aka ‘Amerikan Blackheart’. You also made an art print set as merch out of those. How is it to connect your music to visual art and hearing the response by the viewers/listeners?

It took him some time. He definitely spent some time on it. He worked his butt off for like six months to a year getting all that art together. We would change the titles of the song sometimes so he'd have to change the artwork again to fit the song. I think it really turned out really cool. And I think it's a special way to connect the album with you; just a way to make it a physical thing and not just some digital thing.

You recently released a video for the track “Modern Drugs”, quite a visual work that has deeper connection with the lyrics of the song.

It turned pretty cool. The visuals are very interesting. All together it tied in very well. It's kind of an extreme song.

Another thing that struck me in the video is Jake's guitar decoration, those beer tags or sticker of mostly Belgian Beers. Do I need to ask what your favourite beer is and where it comes from?

Many Belgian beers on there. Lot of my favourite beers on there. I drink a lot of those beers at home so I was saving all the labels and I was like ‘What should I do? Should I cover an amplifier, or just put them on a guitar?”. Some of them are wearing of now because I've been touring with the guitar now and the pick is scratching them off. So I need to drink some more beers and get some new ones. Chimay is on there, and Delirium; I like the strong beers.

If you ever were to be strung out on something, what would it be?

I don't know, I smoke a lot of weed so I guess people would probably say I'm a stoner. That's probably it. Strung out can pertain anything. You can do too much of anything in your life. Too much work, too much this, you can be strung out on your girlfriend. You can be strung out on a job. It's what you make of it. For us it's wasn't always about a drug or something. It's more about being strung out on life. It's a punk rock thing, you can be strung out on all sorts of things.

Any last words or plans you'd like to share with us?

Just keep touring supporting the record. We'll hopefully come back here somewhere next year and just thank you to everyone for coming out to the show and buying the record and listening to it.

– David Marote

Tags Strung Out

Frank Carter

Post author By administrator
Post date 28 July 2015

We recently had the pleasure to chat on the phone with Frank Carter about his new project, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes. Their album "Blossom" drops on August 14th on CD, vinyl, and super limited edition hand-painted-cover vinyl. Frank was previously the frontman of the bands Gallows and Pure Love.

We’ve been following your career here at RMP and noticed that The Rattlesnakes are definitely a hardcore band, almost in the style of earlier Gallows material, when you were still part of the band – but you still have your own defined sound as The Rattlesnakes. What can you say about the choice to go back to the style of music you played earlier in your career?

I don’t know if it’s a choice to go back to that earlier style. I mean, I think it’s actually a much more mature sound now. Obviously it’s hardcore punk, but I’ve always loved hardcore punk, you know? I took a break to sort of experiment a little bit with my voice in Pure Love and find my seat and wrote a great album there, and now it’s just a case of, you know, starting something new. So I don’t know, there are a lot of surprises on the album. It’s not necessarily just pigeonholed in that one thing. I guess it wasn’t really a conscious decision, it just felt right. We started writing songs, Dean (Richardson, red.) started sending me some riffs and it wrote itself really.

So that’s just basically what came out, and that’s what felt right?

Pretty much, yeah.

You also mentioned Pure Love, would you say that Pure Love was basically a cleanse for you, you got that out of your system and then you decided to go on and play the next thing?

No, I mean Pure Love was like really a difficult band to be in because we just were dealt quite a rough hand from the beginning, so it felt like a lot more of a struggle really than it should have been. We had the wrong management and the wrong people around us. I don’t know whether it was a ‘cleanse’ so to speak, because that’ll never really be out of me, you know I still love that band but this is what I’m doing now, this is what I’m focused on. I feel like everything happens for a reason, that band was there to help me like, understand how I could use my voice better, you know, because I was quite limited when I was in Gallows. But now I can sing, and that’s purely because of Pure Love, so yeah, I think everything happens for a reason and I don’t know if a ‘cleanse’ is the right word. I don’t know, I feel like it set me up and put me on the right path.

I can understand where you’re coming from there, saying you learned to sing with Pure Love, with Gallows you only had one chance really, in “The Vulture”, and that was six or seven years ago now.

Yeah.

There’s definitely a huge difference that you can hear listening to the vocals on “Rotten” and the vocals on the Gallows albums “Orchestra of Wolves” or “Grey Britain”.

Of course.

Which leads me to another question: there was a really cool saturation effect on your vocals throughout almost the entire EP, if not the whole EP. Was that just a production decision, or is that something that you went in and said “I want to do this.”?

No, just, we were looking for the right kind of sound, you know, and I think a little bit of distortion, you kind of get a lot of that when you’re playing live, you know? We wanted this album to sound live and we wanted it to sound like we were just playing a gig, so when we heard it, we had to bring it down a bit because it was just a bit too much. I think it allows my voice to cut through in the right ways, so it just means I’m not squawking over the fucking top of everything, do you know what I mean? I’m settled down a bit in the mix. Yeah, it wasn’t anything we did on purpose. We didn’t set out to do that, it just happened. Everything with this record has been quite organic; it just sort of came together the way it was supposed to.

I believe I read somewhere that all of the instruments were done live, basically, and then you overdubbed vocals and that was it?

Pretty much, yeah, I mean even some of the vocals were done live. The boys were all in one room and then I was in the vocal booth. That’s how I’ve always wanted to record but I never had the opportunity and I feel like a lot of times you spend a lot of time getting the music to sound so perfect and regimented, and you lose a lot of the soul in it that way. Punk music should be about, like the ebb and the flow, you know, like it should be able to push and pull, it should be able to speed up and slow down. And if you’re trying to quantize everything and play to a click, that’s the first thing you lose. You’ve got to stay on the tracks, and I’ve never really been about that, I’ve always wanted to go off the tracks. So yeah, that’s why we wanted to do it all live, and when it came to recording vocals, any bits that I got that I was already happy with, they could stay, and then it was just a case of finding my foot in with the timing and just moving with the band after that already happened. Does that make sense?

Yeah, definitely, and there really aren’t many bands that can pull that off these days.

I don’t think so.

So many bands use a click even when they’re playing live shows and it just saps the emotion right out of it.

Yeah, totally, and it just means you’re so trapped. I never want that, I don’t want that. I’m lucky I’ve surrounded myself with excellent musicians, so I know that I give one look, or they give me a look, and we can hang back or really, really, push it over the edge if we want to pummel people. I think that’s an important ability to have, and if you take that away you’re kind of cheating yourselves out of an atmosphere. That’s what punk music’s all about, it’s about getting in that room with like a hundred sweaty people and just fucking letting loose. If you’re worried about staying in time, you’re playing the wrong music.

You even have people from the right background, you have Memby Jago on drums who was in The Ghost of a Thousand and also you joined you in Pure Love, and Thomas “Mitch” Mitchener who actually engineered “Rotten”, on bass. I’m assuming he’s also working on “Blossom” with you, is that correct?

Yeah, the album’s finished, we recorded the whole thing with Tom and it’s all done. It sounds amazing, fucking really looking forward to people hearing it.

I can’t wait, and I should mention that is going to be out on August 14th, so our readers will be looking out for that one, I’m sure.

Yep, August 14th, it’s coming out worldwide.

Another thing that many bands don’t do these days, you actually had a bonus track on “Rotten” after “Primary Explosive”, and in the digital age, bands have stopped doing that because people can just skip ahead in iTunes. What do you think of that attitude that people always just say “Oh, we want it now, we’re going to skip ahead.”?

They just don’t have any patience.

I think that’s just a product of the world at the minute, but you can counter that by doing what we did – which is just fucking do it anyway. Then even if they do skip ahead, that’s their prerogative. We’ve put it there; we’ve laid it out for them how we believe it should sound. For the people that don’t, the people that forget about it, on the train, or walking or driving, those noises they put you in a place and then all of a sudden you start hearing these chords ringing in, and that’s when you’re really get a feel for it. That’s when it surprises you. Some people, they might just listen to it just in case they missed something, you know, and that’s important as well, so it’s nice to be there. I mean, I could sit here and mouth off about how wrong I think people are, that want everything now, but this is an instant gratification world we’re living in, do you know what I mean? Everything is now, everything is fast, fast, fast, and I think I’ve got to understand that as well, I’ve got to appreciate that. I can’t just fuckingjust go against that too much because we’re going to be the ones that really suffer. I just want to go back really quickly because you missed a member, Dean Richardson, he used to play in a band called Heights, and he’s the guy… Really the band is me and him, we’ve been writing these songs for a long time, and we’ve been writing together for a long time. When I decided I wanted to do the band, he’s the first person I spoke to. He wrote all of the music with me and helped me structure the songs, so he’s kind of the kingpin of all this really, so I just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss him, sorry.

No worries, so you’d say he’s the co-conspirator, basically?

Pretty much, yeah, partner in crime-type thing.

I think, everything is expected to be so instant, people won’t go down to the record store that’s five minutes away anymore.

No, they won’t.

They just go to iTunes, and they won’t look at the art or anything even, which is, I think incredibly sad, because that’s part of it, that’s part of the package that comes with the music and that’s what you, as the artist, especially since you’re a painter, want people to experience.

Yeah, definitely, that’s what’s been so important to me, that’s why we’ve kind of structured the physical aspects of this record the way we have, we’ve put out a worldwide vinyl and on top of that we decided to make one that was purely for collectors, because for as many people out there that want it now, and they want it to just drop into their phone without realizing, there’s also a good amount of people that still care about the artistry behind it. One thing I’ve noticed is, I have a lot of people congratulate me on the artwork, they’ve all said that they really like it and it speaks to them. So we decided to make this really special edition version of the vinyl, which is just limited to a hundred. It’s really expensive, it’s 200 Pounds. But what you get with that, is you get a variant cover of the artwork, which is completely hand-painted by me, so every single one is different, you’ll just get a random one when you buy it, but also you’ll get a version of vinyl that’s limited to 100 and won’t ever be repressed. That’s our way of sort of saying to people, people might look at that and balk at the price and say “What the fuck, who are these guys that can charge that?” but we can do whatever the fuck we want, do you know what I mean? I don’t have to answer to anybody because we set this up totally DIY, all ourselves, we just reached out to a label services company to help us fulfil it. I think that people might come back and check that again, they might see it and laugh at it the first time, then in a week they might come back and say “Oh man”, it just makes people look twice at the physical aspect of it, which to me is really important. I’m a record collector, so I’ve always wanted to get that number, to get that one of a hundred which is never going exist anywhere of the world outside of that, it’s exciting.

I think that’s one of the things that has your fans coming back from one band, to the next, to the next, is the attitude that you just honestly do what you want. You make the music you want to make, and you put out the records that you want to make, and if they don’t like it you don’t care about that. You say “This is what I want to do, so this is what I’m going to do.”

Yeah, of course. Obviously, I want the band to be a success, I would like people to like it, but likewise I’m not going to lose sleep if they don’t, because that would be counterproductive. If I wanted to do that, I would just fucking tweet to 20,000 people and say “What do you want to hear?” and then I would write songs accordingly. All of them would be involved in the song writing process, and that would be a fucking nightmare, do you know what I mean? So the quickest way to do it is just for me to write what I love and be honest to myself, and I think that’s what people have always respected about me and that’s what brings people back. One thing I’ve rarely been called is sell-out, you know? I mean I was called it a little bit in Gallows, and that’s understandable, we did sell out, we sold to a major label for a load of money. That was fucking… I would do it again. I’ve always been true to myself and I’ve done what I wanted to do, because if I’m happy and I feel like I’ve got something to say, then I’m going to deliver it the way I think it should be delivered, which is with 100% passion. Raw emotion. It means that I’m able to really get behind the songs, and that’s how I feel at the minute. I really feel like I’m at a defining moment in my career where I’ve got this brilliant album, playing with great musicians, I think the lyrics are my best work ever, by quite a long way, and that feels really, really exciting. It feels like I’m in a good place.

I totally agree with that, and it’s funny you mention “Grey Britain” because Reprise ended up dropping you afterwards because, you know, you did your thing.

Because we did what we wanted.

Yeah, and they expected Green Day or something.

Yeah, definitely.

Unfortunately I believe you have more interviews lined up, but I just want to mention you’re are touring right now and you’re also going to hit up Reading and Leeds.

Yeah, we’ve got Reading and Leeds, I can’t fucking wait man.

I think I saw you said it’s your sixth or seventh time out there?

Yeah, I think this year’s going to be my seventh year playing Reading and Leeds and this is the one I’m most excited about because we’ve been on tour now for three or four days, and we’ve only got three songs out really, but the reaction has been incredible. These songs are really connecting to people, on a level which is beyond what I thought it was, so to get back to that festival which is like my home festival, that’s what I grew up going to, and play the majority of an album which will be out by then, which is music that I really fucking care about, I feel like it’s really saved my life, that’s a fucking exciting proposition, so I’m really looking forward to it.

Well Frank, thank you so much for your time, and good luck on the road.

Thank you for the interview.

– James Cross

Tags Frank Carter

Teenage bottlerocket

Post author By administrator
Post date 25 June 2015

The night before Groezrock kicked off its annual punk party, a selection of some of the pop punk bands playing were playing another great small fest in Munchen, Germany. The Uncle M Fest featured bands like Masked Intruder, Make Do And Mend and Teenage Bottlerocket. We from RMP were present and took some time to talk to Teenage Bottlerocket’s frontman Ray Carlisle about their latest release “Tales From Wyoming” and much more at Skaters palace, Munchen.

Today you're playing Uncle M Fest in Germany. Will you play “Ich Bin Auslander…”?

Yes, we will. It was a song that I learned in high school. I took German in high school. And it was sung to a different melody but I changed the melody and made it a pop punk song. We also did the Tony Sly song “Via Munich”, which was a coincidence, for the EP “American Deutsch Bag”. The other songs didn't have anything to do with Germany though.

“Skate Or Die” is an obvious ode to skateboarding. Today we're in Munster, Skaters palace. Did you find time to hit the deck?

I didn't bring my skateboard to Europe, usually I have my skateboard on tour. I skated the day before I got here. But I left my skateboard at home.

What came first, skateboarding or punk rock?

Kind of the same time. I got into skateboarding and my older brother had the DK logo on his grip tape and he had Black Flag’s “My War” on cassette. He was like ‘Here's the Bones Brigade, here's Powel Peralta, here's G&S,…’ It all was intertwined with like I said Black Flag, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys. More so skateboarding was the forefront of my life before punk rock. Punk rock became more after Green Day.

Saturday you're playing Groezock in Belgium. Any special songs for Belgium or what may we expect?

We’ll just try to play as best as we can, stay sober. It will be our second time, it's an honour to be playing there. We don't take it for granted so we keep that in mind when hitting the stage.

“Tales From Wyoming”, your most recent album has been out for a couple of weeks now. How has the response been?

It's been great, it's cool to hear everyone singing along to the new songs. It seems that everyone is getting into the record. The response has been phenomenal.

You also have some exclusive watches coming out from Vannen watches. It's like an eyeball of some monster. How did this come by?

The guys just really love our band. They asked us if we wanted to do a watch and we said yes. It's almost as simple as that. They came to our show at the Warped tour in Ventura. I'm standing behind their product, I'm wearing a watch by them right now. We were involved a little bit in the design. The first design we weren't 100%happy with so they changed it. So they listened to us a little bit.

One of the new tracks, “Found The One”, is a straight up love song. Congratulations, the follow up to “She's Not The One”. How important is love to you?

That's a coincidence. I think that we try to write songs about things other than girls. So we have our songs like “Haunted House”, “Too Much La Collina”. You get to switch it up. We'll always write love songs and sometimes it's about girls that are cool and sometimes it's about girls who are shitty.

“Nothing Else Matters” holds some Metallica references. A big influence to Teenage Bottle Rocket?

I think Metallica was an influence to us for sure. Growing up, watching Headbanger’s Ball. Before punk rock had really taken over our lives, Metallica did.

Teenage Bottle Rocket always has great videos. You've got the Mincecraft-themed video for “They Call Me Steve”. Or the headbanging video for “Headbanger”. How important is a video to the band?

I think it's really cool. It's part of the way the internet is now. We did a lyric video for “Nothing Else Matters”. Putting together the “They Call Me Steve”-video was funny, because we just did a YouTube search for people who did Minecraft videos. We found this kid in Vancouver, I'm pretty sure he lived with his parents and sent him ‘Hey man, can you like make a video for us.’ And he said ‘Yeah man. I'll do it.’ He kind of quoted a small amount of money. ‘Okay, we'll give you that.’ And the video turned out great. We kind of had to walk him through every single step of the way. He had us strumming our guitars up and down, and we had him switch to like all down strokes. In the end we're really happy with how it turned out. For the “Haunted House” video we filmed in Fort Collins in the street near where our drummer lives. It was a house that literally looked haunted and it was abandoned.So we just broke into the house for a day and recorded this video. Hopefully we can do a couple more videos for this album before it's on to the next record.

Any plans in the nearby future or tours?

Tons of touring, we're going to be back in Europe in August. Between then and now we'll be on the road all the time.

– David Marote

Tags Teenage Bottlerocket

The Smith street band

Post author By administrator
Post date 25 June 2015

Australia, home of the kangaroo and the boomerang. But these last years it seems that their main export product has been kick ass bands. The Smith Street Band are one of those bands that have been touring relentlessly and becoming the best ambassadors the ex-convict colony could wish for. During their stop at Groezrock we took the liberty to sit down with frontman Wil Wagner and discuss their latest album “Throw Me In The River” and much more.

Hey, end of last year you released your latest album “Throw Me In The River”. How has the response been so far?

It's been amazing; almost surprising. We've put it out and then we toured in Australia a lot of the back of it. We've pretty much been on tour since it came out. People know the words to my songs. It's been amazing.

The amazing Jeff Rosenstock produced “Throw Me In The River”. What led you onto the path of Jeff?

I find him amazing too. We toured with Jeff when he was Bomb The Music Industry, just him and his iPod in Australia. I like him and John K Samson pretty much, and Bruce Springsteen. When I was like fifteen or sixteen, I started listening to Bomb The Music Industry. They taught me so much about being in a band. Just like “Fuck it, you want to start a band, start a band.” He's so passionate, we did that tour and then we toured with Bomb The Music Industry full band in Australia and just became good friends with him. We basically got him to produce the album but none of us knew what a producer was. We basically just wanted to hang out with Jeff for a few months.He came down and he is so positive and his brain is so amazing. You're playing and he goes “That would go good with a flute.” He pulls out his computer and puts on a flute. Plays it back, oh my god, I never thought of a flute sound on a Smith Street song. Working with him was amazing. I can't believe I'm friends with him.

You also embarked on a US tour with Jeff Rosenstock, Andrew Jackson Jihad and Chumped some time ago. How was it playing a full-on tour in the States for an Australian band?

It was awesome. We've done a few tours in the States. I love Andrew Jackson Jihad as well. I've never seen them. We've played with them once here in Antwerp. And then Chumped as well, the whole tour, every person was so nice. All the Jihad guys are so nice. All the shows were no ages and no barriers, making it a crowd-friendly experience. Doing that tour we learned a lot. Andrew Jackson Jihad, I love them and now they're like an important band. I tell people to get “Christmas Island”. His lyrics are so weird, so dark but so hopeful as well. I adore that band. I got to get a tattoo of that band now. I've already got a Jeff tattoo.

Maybe one of Sean's (AJJ singer) drawings?

I really want to, he was drawing, he's just a genius. He'd be sitting backstage doing watercolours and then he'd be out skateboarding and be better than anyone else. He's just one of those guys, what can't you do.

The band has been going for five crazy years, three albums out and numerous tours. Did you ever expect this when starting out?

I remember when we started we sold out a venue of like 200 people. I was like “That's fucked”. Anything that happens from here is just a bonus. I feel like we're tricking everyone, soon everyone is going to clue on and realise we're just some idiots from Australia. This is so unexpected. We've been on tour since January and we're so tired and I miss my girlfriend and my cats. And now we're waking up and playing Groezrock again, I try to remind myself to be excited about it. None of us takes this for granted. Whenever people show up we're like “This is so good”.

The band’s name is based on a legendary street in Melbourne. Given your status today as international band and in line with The Beatles Abbey Road street sign antics, has there been an increase in theft of Smith Street signs in Melbourne?

Yes, people steal the Smith Street sign. I've got one at home. The first is hanging in our lounge room. A lot of people steal them and bring them to sign them. Parkway Drive are from Australia as well and Parkway Drive is a street in Byron Bay and we drove down there. And the street sign is like as high as those lights. You need to put a ladder up there because it's so high so no kids can steal it. When we drove by people were trying to steal it.

You recently put up a new video for the song “Arrogance Of A Drunk Pedestrian”, a track of the new album. I noticed a Weed culture sticker on the guitar headstock and you also have songs like “Get High”, “See No One”. How do you stand on drug use in general?

Oh my god. I'm very pro weed obviously. Whatever people want to do, they can do, is my opinion. If people are like dominating other people, I don't like that. I've done most of the drugs that you can do in my life, they all have their benefits and their downsides. Marihuana should be legal, it's insane that it's not. We've toured all of America and then you go to Denver and it's beautiful and clean. That's because of weed. It's great. I think that marihuana should be legal. That weed culture sticker, I saw it on a window and just stole it and stuck on my guitar.

You recently recorded a 7” for a similar cause. Can you tell us some more on what motivated you to do so?

That was amazing. We've put out a 7”. The Australian government has a very backwards policy towards refugees. It's basically not letting anyone in. A lot of people live like in detention centres for like five, six, seven or eight years. For really long periods of time, it's almost barbaric. I wrote a song because I was angry about it and it must have been a slow news day in Australia. Because the main newspapers of Australia are like calling us for interviews and a big photo of us in the newspaper on page six. We've donated like 85,000 dollars just from the 7” and then we put on a show that generated like 20,000 dollar that we donated for the refugee charity. We've got a lot of like angry racist people yelling at us. I can talk about it in every interview that I do. But that's good; you don't want these people to like your band. I've got lots of friends who do volunteer work and stuff but we can't do that since we're away. So it was the best way to give something back. That's my favourite thing we did as a band.

When listening to The Smith Street Band, there's no hiding that you hail from Australia. Is it a conscious decision to sing with an Australian accent?

Yeah, unfortunately that's how I talk. For me you have to sing like you talk. The Australian accent is just so horrible. If you get singing lessons you get taught to sing in an American accent, because that's like the technically correct way to sing. A lot of Australian bands go out on stage and they're like “ G'day…” then they start singing and they sound very American. For me, I try to make everything very personal and very honest. Your lyrics and your singing should just be an extension of who you are. I always try to sing with my voice.

You've encountered some strange things during your career. Like the ‘ampgate scandal’ when your amp was stolen at a show. Any other memorable facts that we need to know about?

Oh, the ampgate, that was really fun. I felt like a detective for a day. We've had many silly incidents. It all just adds to the hilarity of touring. You need things like that to keep it interesting. Every few days something bizarre happens that you could never expect. It's the good thing about being around the world. You have crazy experiences. Ampgate was fun, especially for me. I have things stolen before that I didn't get back and this one was great since I got my amp back. Personal victory for me.

The Smith Street Band has gained a loyal army of fans over the years, worldwide. When you're playing it seems that everyone present knows the words and shouts along. How does it feel when you see the crowd respond so well?

It's the best feeling in the world. You can't even describe it. None of us has any money, we live in shitty houses. We're always fighting with our girlfriends because we're on tour the whole time. I dropped out of university and all that just to do this band. We sleep on the floor and drive all day. When you like get on stage and I sing about how I'm like a sad, weird idiot and people like clap and sing along. It just makes you feel so much better. Probably because I write about depression and anxiety, singing about that stuff and having other people get into it, makes me believe that I'm not crazy. It's the best therapy or drug or anything that there is. That's why we tour so much. There's nothing like it, it's the best feeling in the world.

– David Marote

Tags The Smith street band

Dwarves

Post author By administrator
Post date 25 June 2015

Rock legends The Dwarves have always been one of those bands that should be playing at Groezrock but never made it. Up until this year’s edition where gentleman Blag Dahlia and his merry band finally made it to Groezrock to show the kids some real punkrock. So we at RMP Magazine grasped this opportunity to have a chat with the rock legends that are The Dwarves and what a chat it was. Chaotic and fun, just like the band and its members. Find out more about The Dwarves below!

Welcome to Belgium, first time at Groezrock.

Blag : Very first time at Groez…

Marc : We've been to Belgium

Blag : Pukkelpop, wasn't that Belgium too?

Marc : Oh yeah. And Graspop Metal Meeting, that was a good one.

Blag : We hold hands with Belgium

Marc : You got fucking cool waffles, you don't eat them with syrup?

Today you played the main stage, a big stage with barriers and so. How do you feel on that?

Blag : I wounded up jumping into the crowd while Rex Everything was singing. So I got a little crowd interaction. I like it when the crowd is more close-on. I don't like the barrier. I just like to get out there. So then I can grab a titty or an ass, you know.

Marc : So you're a groper?

Blag : I'm a groper!

Today's performance is part of a European tour featuring the Russian undercover KGB spies The Svetlanas.

Marc : Svetlanas are awesome, they are from mother Russia

Blag : She busted her leg last night, very tough.

Marc : Last night she dislocated her knee, still played the show. They’re fantastic.

The Dwarves are all about primal drives. Sex, drugs and rock 'n’ roll. You almost stand out as the last bastion of feral punk energy.

Blag : What do you mean almost. We are the last real punk band. Nick Oliveri's penis is larger than all of the other punk bands combined.

When did punk rock become so safe?

Blag : They didn't ask me, everyone is like chicken shit now. What happened Marc, you remember punk?

Marc : When we were young, you went to shows, you learned how to play, you wrote a fucking good song. Nowadays it's like “Hey that guy has got cool tattoos and big earlobe things, let's just form a band!” I don't want to be a dick but there are bands like that. It just used to be, you learned how to play and wrote a song went on the road for years, now it's like “Ifound four other guys with tattoos and earlobes stretched” and you got a band.

Blag : Even so, even with your earlobes stretched. They have to want to fuck and get loaded. I don't care if they are just fashion fags and they suck. That's fine, I understand that. But if they are not searching for vagina or penis, equal opportunity, fag bands are good by us, we go both ways. Musically.

Marc : Nick said he played a good vegan festival, pretty rock 'n’ roll, shitty food.

Nick : Food wasn't that good . Food that tastes like Styrofoam. Not so good…

Another thing that seems to be missing in punk and music in general today is humour. What is your opinion on this?

Marc : Punk rock is just fashion, you've got a lot of cool tattoos and your ears are stretched. And now you've got the big fucking beard.

Blag : The emo beard, those are kind of funny. Because people get food stuck in them so that's kind of humorous. But it's unintentional.

Nick : I hear this band is changing their name to The Hewhocannotbenamedes… (pointing at Masked Intruder)

Blag : Masked Intruder are biting our Hewhocannotbenamed style. Can you believe that? I love those guys.

I didn't see Hewhocannotbenamed on stage today.

Blag : He's here actually, I just saw him. He's very unpredictable; you never know what he is going to do. He transcends life and death.

Your website was hacked recently by Jihadi associates. How weird was that, a rock band getting hacked as a sort of political act?

Blag : We can't make this shit up. Our website got hacked by Tunisian fundamentalists, the little fucks. I think the problem is we have lot of tits and ass on our site and that made them upset. Because Islamic jihadists don't have genitals, they are born without genitals…

Marc : I'm working on a new magazine it's called Burka babes. It's going to be a hot girl wearing aburka just showing the ankle. But we're going to show more ankle than anybody. Look for it, Burka Babes.

Nick : Ankles and eyes baby! Burka Babes!

Blag : We're like the Charlie Hebdo of rock. Every city that has a kebab shop we're worried they will be cutting our heads off.

Marc : It's a religion of peace, if you don't believe me I'll cut your head off.

You once wrote a song for George Bush’s campaign. If you were to do so today, who would it be addressed to?

Blag : Rex Everything wrote the song “River City Rapist”for Bush, it was at the Texas time.

Nick : It's actually Jorge Bush! A different Bush for a different time…

Marc : Now we have a new Bush coming on, it's happening all again.

Blag : We could write a Hillary Clinton song called “There Better Be Women”.

You had to cancel the Hannover show, but played the Netherlands instead? What happened?

Blag : At the last minute those Speedfest guys said we'll give you a bunch of drugs and money and you can fuck our Netherland women. Or you can drive all the way to Hannover. We don't care about people so we played the Netherlands show. We took the money and vagina.

I do want to say this to the people of Hannover, We love you and we shall return. We beg your forgiveness. That club Bei Chez Heinz, very cool guys, they were great and we'll going to go back. If they'll have us, if they won't, then fuck them. We did it for the money, we're The Dwarves. We like money and vagina.

You also released an EP on Fat Wreck Chords and two weeks ago another EP for Records Store Day. How did this come by?

Blag : That record was on Burger, a cool garage label from Orange County. Those guys are great and they do all our reissues on CD and shit like that. They did the single “Sluts Of The U.S.A.”, “Fun To Try”, great kind of poppy garage single.And on Fat Wreck Chords we did like a hardcore single with pop punk. Kind of Rex Everything's song stuck in the void. That one has my dick on it, butt naked. If you like to look at penis as well as vagina you got everything on that single on Fat Wreck Chords.

Any last words or plans you'd like to share?

Marc :We love Belgium, we like Groezrock.

Blag : The Dwarves are rock legends, the greatest rock 'n’ roll band of all time!

– David Marote

Tags Dwarves

Atreyu

Post author By administrator
Post date 25 June 2015

It has been very quiet around Californian metal band Atreyu in the past couple of years. So we at RMP were over the moon when we heard the news that they were touring once again and releasing a new album! We, of course, like to share with you the resurrection of Atreyu and sat down at Groezrock to have a chat with guitar player Dan about their hiatus, the Never Ending Story and their many influences.

Hi Dan, and welcome to Belgium. This year you and the guys are playing mostly big festivals like Pukkelpop,Reading festival and Rock Fest all over the world. Are you looking forward to this tour?

It's nice, we don't want to tour as heavily as we used to. We still want to be very active as far as performing but not just aggressively touring all the time. We’d like to cover a lot more ground by hitting the festivals, just to get to a lot more people faster.

Today you'll play Groezrock festival. Is this your first time at Groezrockand how do you feel about the festival ?

It's awesome; it looks like there are tons of people here. Everyone seems to be having a really good time, it's so early in the day and people are having so much fun already. And the sun is out, I feel like I'm in California.

In 2011 you decided to take a break. If we may ask, why did you take a break for a while ?

We were just a little bit burned out. We’ve just been touring for too long, too much. The fun was kind of coming out of it. We weren't that inspired any more.All the essential elements needed to be there to really be the best musician, best band, best songwriter that we could be weren't there anymore. We needed to take a step back, recharge essentially. We needed to plug ourselves back in the end of the wall for like four or five years and once were fully charged to jump back in the game again.

After more than four years the band is back together. Is it different now than before the break ?

A little bit, we're a little bit older and wiser. We have a different perspective now of how we look at everything and do everything. We just try to be a bit smarter about how we handle our business. Like before it was “Who cares?Jjust go crazy and be rock stars” Now we try to be a bit more careful with what shows we play and where we play and how often we play; everything from merch to the presentation of our overall product that is Atreyu. I feel a little bit more confident now because we are a bit more knowledgeable.

Atreyu returned to the stage on September 14, 2014 at the Afershock festival in Sacramento, California. How did it feel to be back up on stage as Atreyu after all this time?

It feels good, especially since it's been that long. I was a little nervous. Can I still play? Do people going to still care? The first show you come back and it had sold out in like thirty seconds which is the fastest we ever sold out a show. That's a nice start. We'll take that. Feels like home to be back on stage.

You’re band name comes from the main character Atreyu, from the movie the Never Ending story. Why the choice for this character ?

Initially we were another band called Retribution. Alex, Brandon and myself, we wanted to change our name as our music style was progressing. Something that was fresh and new to go along with that. A lot of the bands we were into were getting their names from sci-fi movies, fantasy, horror, movie character names or comic book titles, stuff like that. So we were looking into and the Never Ending Story came up and the lead character Atreyu was the one that fit the most.

The band made a great cover for the song “You Give Love A Bad Name” by Bon Jovi. Why did you choose this song in particular ?

I personally am a big fan of the classic 70-80's style rock. Everything was over the top with that. I feel there's a lot of that element mixed in with Atreyu. So I feel covering a song like that and doing it in Atreyu style just felt really appropriate. It's a fun song and everyone knows it so when we play it it's a fun time.

The song “Her Portrait In Black” was the soundtrack of the movie “Underworld: Evolutions”. How was it to be a part of the soundtrack for this movie?

Just one of those things our label hit us up with. “Hey, these guys are interested in doing something with you.” We were like “Cool!” The song was actually to be on our third record, ‘A Death Grip On Yesterday’. We ended it up taking it off the record so it could be exclusively on this soundtrack. Which was cool but I really wish we could have put it on the album, it's such a rad song.

The screaming guitar parts are a recognisable part of Atreyu. What bands influenced you on the guitar parts ?

I'm a big fan of all the 80's stuff, like Van Halen, Def Leppard, stuff like that. Scorpions,Queen even, I just love how over the top their playing was and how melodic it is. There's so much talent, just very inspiring to watch. Not being the lead singer but being worshipped like they are. For me that was always something I wanted to pursue, I wanted to be like a guitar hero. I don't just want to be the guitar player in the band.

I heard you have a nickname, “Big Dan”. Is this correct ? And why “Big Dan” ?

It's kind of an ironic nickname I got when I was fourteen years old. I was one of the smallest dudes out of my group of friends but I got a big personality. So I feel my presentation of myself is larger and maybe for even more adult reasons. It just stuck.

On record store day you released a 7” with the old song “So Others May live” and a brand new song “When The Day Is Done”. Why did you decide to release the new song in this way?

“So Others May Live” we wrote within the last year. So it's still pretty new. We put it out, just kind of give people a taste. We did a video for it and then “When The Day Is Done” is another song we recorded at the same time but hadn't had the chance to release yet. We never done a 7” record before, I have tons of 7”s at home. So we felt it was really appropriate. Especially for a band like us that grew up going to record stores. That was a big part of our lives. That's how you discovered new music. If you wanted a new style or didn't know what to get you could go to the guy of the record store and he was like the human box of Pandora. You just take the gamble and buy it.

So how do you feel on the internet and how music is everywhere now?

It's really good and really bad at the same time. It's really good in the sense that it's so much easier to access new band’s music but in the same time because it's so accessible I feel a lot of people get lost in the mix. It's really hard to stand out. Before there weren’t many people on the internet so it was easier to get noticed. We were one of the first bands to get noticed through the internet in the early 2000's. I'm a fan of it because I wouldn't be here without it. You lose that kind of nostalgic feeling of going to the record store, read through the booklet, read all the lyrics, look at the artwork. Now you just go click a button and in a download you get that instant gratification that makes you not appreciate the music as you would have as it was harder to get.

At the moment the band is working on a new album named “Long Live” that will be released in September of this year. What can we aspect from this album and what do you hope?

It's just the new Atreyu. It sounds like everything we've done in the past but it's a more updated version of it. It's a lot more aggressive than our last two records. I won't say too much, I want people to form their own opinion. If you like Atreyu you’re going to love this record.