Interview 09/02
1) So your 7" on Indecision has been out a few months now, whats the reaction been like?
So far the reaction has been great. We've played some awesome shows in the northeast and even had cool shows in places like Nashville. It's not really what I was expecting. I'm really glad kids like it though. What means more to me is individual kids coming up to me and talking to me about why they liked and didn't like about the record. It means a lot to me that someone would take the time to think about something that we did. Yes of course. I knew we would do okay cause a lot of our friends from Boston came down, and Boston is a very supportive city. But I was blown away by the kids from everywhere else who were going crazy. It was great. I was also stoked on the reactions that my friends bands got there. Seeing Stop And Think destroy that place was unreal.
3)The song on the 7" 'Now Lie In It' talks about 'Trophy boys, and trophy girls' and at posi#'s before you played the song you mentioned your ideas behind the song. are there a lot of scene whores in Boston? and does it affect the scene in anyway?
I think that anytime hardcore or punk rock gets popular you get insecure bandwagon jumpers. And hardcore's pretty popular in Boston, so you get a lot of people that feel like it matters who they are seen with and blah blah. Most of the time I try not to pay attention to it, but sometimes it gets to me because I feel like Punk should be different from the real world. I kind of think of it as the refuge for people who don't fit in in the real world. I feel like competing for status in punk rock is the ultimate pathetic statement. It's like playing basketball against 10 year olds or something. And of course it effects the scene in negative ways because you start to question motives of people and it just generally creates a crappy vibe.
4)What's your opinion on the current trend in traditional hardcore to be obsessed by English indie rock, do you buy into it?
Uh. I am the wrong person to ask. I know nothing about English indie rock and I aim to keep it that way. I guess if kids are into it it's cool, so far everything I've heard hasn't really moved me. My roommates listen to a lot of that shit and it seems kind of boring to me. But what do I know.
5)You got a split comin out on deathwish soon with the Hope Conspiracy. how did this come about, I heard it n your tracks have got a real rock n roll feel about them especially in the guitar riffs, is this a direction you wanna move in?
Well we are all friends with Tre, who does Deathwish and he just asked us to do a record with them as part of their split series. Tre's a great guy. I actually don't write any of the music, I think the band listens to all kinds of shit and sometimes different stuff comes out. I actually don't like much ROCK AND ROLL except for 70's shit like the Stooges and Ted Nugent, but I think it works.
6)I read an interview with you once on you described your music as "Defiantly music you could skate to". Do any of the band skate?
I skate terribly, Neeraj is actually pretty good. His dream was to become pro. He still skates like a couple times a month. And he's got a sick original Alva shirt that he wears to torture me. I was a pretty big fan of Lance Mountain growing up (who wasn't I guess) but I know didley squat about current skaters.
7) Im always interested in hardcore kids views on the skate industry and its 'gangstarisation'. Whats your views on its movement away from punk and hardcore?
I think it was inevitable. Skateboarding thrives on being on the edge of things and shocking and punk and hardcore don't have the shock value they once had. I think it was only natural that skating gravitated to hip hop, I mean in the late 80's hardcore kids listened to a lot of hip hop too. The "gangstarisation" of skating keeps it fresh and new, but it kind of sucks for me cause I can't really keep up with it.
8) When you were a kid what attracted you to hardcore and punk rock? is that aspect still the same today, is it still evident in your local scene?
I like the intimacy, the energy and and the anger of it. I was always a really angry kid, and hardcore connects with me in it's rejection of the status quo. I could go to a hardcore show and it was like it's own community that was separate from everything I was being fed on TV and in school. It was the ultimate release. I think in many ways it still is. I'm 25 now and I still take pride in the fact that on the weekends instead of getting drunk and going to a club or going to see some crappy movie with Will Smith I create my own entertainment with my friends that is all about pure emotion. There's no bullshit in hardcore. It's like the crescendo of a song without everything leading up to it. It's great and I still love it.