Monday, March 12, 2012

INTERVIEW: xJOSHx (Sea Shepherd & ex-To Kill)


Ex-singer of TO KILL and curent member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Josh took the time to fill us in to what's happening in the Antarctic, in the war against whalers. 




I first found out about Sea Sheperd at the To Kill show in Cluj Napoca. You were wearing a shirt with Sea Sheperd and i didn’t know anything of it so when i got home, i checked it out on the internet and i was amazed... 

1. First off, let’s talk about Sea Shepherd. What drove you to basically quit everything for a few months and set sail to the Antarctic Ocean?
Josh: For me since To Kill got together the band was an absolute priority. I was always an activist and a hardcore kid and i really lived my whole life just following these 2 paths. At the beginning of 2010 we decided that to kill would have broke up and as soon as we took this decision i decided to send my application to become a member of sea shepherd. Sea shepherd has always been an organization that i thought it was really important to support. Is the only marine conservation organization that uses direct action as it’s tool to achieve it’s goals and i think direct action is really nowadays almost the last tool remained to change things. I joined the ship “Steve Irwin” in may 2010 and since then i live on the ship. I left for the first time in august to go visit my friends and family for a few weeks and rejoined after a month.


2. The “No Compromise” Campaign was one of the most successful actions against the whalers. Can you tell us more about your role on the ship and how long did you stay on the ship?
Josh: Probably the “No Compromise” Campaign has been the most efficient anti whaling campaign in the southern oceans ever. Every year the japanese whaling fleet go down in the antarctic whale sanctuary with a quota of over 1000 whales that they want to kill and last year we managed to save over 800 whales from being slaughtered. It was amazing when actually after a few weeks of engagement and actions they announced that they would have left the southern oceans and head back to port cause of our actions. It was like giving us a prize and recognizing all our hard work and sacrifices to save the whales.
My role during the campaign was mainly to be on the small boat and do the actions against the harpoon ships. It was really exciting and really important for me to be actually involved in the action from the small boats. You have no idea of what the feeling could be of just cruising under the bow of an harpoon ship while deploying a prop fouler or throwing some butyric acid. I stayed on board the whole campaign and we were at sea from December 2nd 'till March 4th if I can remember right.

3. What other actions did you take part in with Sea Shepherd?
Josh: I took part on 4 campaigns so far: 2 campaigns in the Mediterranean sea to protect Bluefin tuna, 1 antarctic campaign to protect whales, and 1 Faroes campaign to protect pilot whales from being mercilessly massacred on the beaches of the Faroes Islands. Right now I’m in my cabin and we are sailing down to Australia to pick up some more crew and head down to Antarctica again as the japanese whaling fleet announced that they are going to go down again no matter if they keep on loosing money.

4. How was life on the “Steve Irwin”? From what I can tell the whole expedition was more or less a cat and mouse game. How did you spend the time when there was no “action”?
Josh: Life on the Steve Irwin is amazing. I can't imagine anything better right now. The people are great, there are also several HC kids and they are really amazing.
Exactly the whole campaign consist in finding the factory ship, the “Nishin Maru” once we find it the game is over for them: there is just not going to be any more whaling.
Of course find 4 ships in an ocean is not so easy so there is also a lot of waiting. On the ship we are never sitting on our asses.everyone works 8 hours a day doing all sort of jobs. My department (the deck department) is in charge of maintaining the ship. I wouldn't trade it for anything else on board. During campaign we prepare all the tactics, all the tools that we need etc. when we are off from work we mostly hang out, play games watch movies play music and stuff like that. I think if your mind is set in the proper way you can really have an amazing time on board.

5. Antarctica is such an amazing place and you are one of the lucky ones who got to experience it, did this experience change you in any way?
Josh: Absolutely! I think for the first time i realized what a really pristine environment is. I’ve been often in natural reserves or national parks etc but i never really felt isolated form the human race, you never spend too long without finding another human being  or traces of it (from the rubbish on the floor to a fence to a trail) or anyway i was always at maximum half a day travel from humans. In Antarctica you can really feel the wilderness around you and i think that motivates me a lot in what i do. I think this is the last untouched place on earth and we should fight so that it stays as more as possible safe from the human impact. I also felt how sometime we forget how strong and powerful nature could be. You can see crazy storms and absolutely unfriendly environment and it feels almost like a way for the planet to say “ok you took everything and you are destroying everything, i will make it impossible for you, man, to take over this last sanctuary”.

6. How can anyone get involved with Sea Shepherd, I mean except donating and stuff like that? I know the “Maelstrom” EP was a benefit for them, but how can a “regular” person get involved?
Josh: There are always ways to get involved. As a “regular person” you can go on the website and just check it out. Informing yourself about what sea shepherd does is a perfect first step and it can be followed by many other steps just as important: making a donations, organizing a fundraisers event, organize an on shore group to start a sea shepherd chapter in your area, raising awareness about Sea Shepherd campaigns and try to involve as much as possible people around you about the issue that we fight for. Then as you said you can get creative. To Kill did a benefit release, people do benefit bake sales, dinners, lectures... just think about what you are great in.

7. Ok, now let’s talk about To Kill. The break-up seemed very sudden. You were one of the most active hardcore bands in Europe and then you called it quits. What happened?
Josh: I guess sometime things just happens and everything soon or later gets to an end. To Kill was and always will be one of the most amazing things i took part to in my life. Hard to say what happened... maybe nothing really happened. It was just the right time. I guess it’s really hard to know.

8. You got to tour a lot, even playing in Romania with Bane. What are your fondest moments with the band?
Josh: We played several hundreds shows all around the place with to kill and that eastern European tour we did with bane was the prof of what to kill really was for us. Indeed a band but it was also an adventure. It was a living creature almost. I think i cant talk about a moment or another... every single moment in the band was just unique, in the good or the bad ways... anything really was an important part of what To Kill was.

9. Are you still active in the hardcore scene?
Josh: I don't think there is anything in the world as amazing as the hc scene. I am and i always will be active in the hc scene. Living on a ship it’s a little harder to be part of a local group but the amazing thing of hardcore is also that wherever you find yourself around the world at a hc show you can find a brother and a sister just as you had back home. On the ship there are several hc kids, vegan and straight edge as well and we have our little scene over here, listen to records while we work and make the usual hc nerd talks that are all used to do ;)
I think hardcore and DIY will always be part of me.
 
10. How do you see the scene right now? Do you think it still has the potential to spark some change into society or we’re just preaching to the choir?
Josh: As i said I am away from the scene since a year an half. Since i was on the ship though i saw few shows. I have to say that the shows i saw where shows with a big hc energy. I just recently saw Trial in London while the ship was docked in southern UK, and fuck man i think that show is exactly what hardcore means to me and i’m so happy that one of the few shows i saw in the last period was actually Trial.

11. Animal rights and straight edge were some of the main themes in To Kill. How do you see the whole vegan straight edge scene now? I mean I’ve heard people say that it’s just too preachy and people are trying to enforce their own values on others.
Josh: Fuck that!  Think sharing ideals is vital for our scene and even more important for ourselves. If we don't exchange ideas we are just going to become zombies. It doesn't matter what the ideas your are spreading, just spread them and confront with the people around you. Beside this which is a more generic thing, i think that the world is going fucked and we are the reason for that, therefore i think that you can call it preaching i can call it telling you my point of views, at the end of the day i just hope you will actually think about these kind of issues. I think it’s important that animal rights environment and sxe ideals will burn inside the hc scene, as it’s important that political ideals will still be alive.
About those 2 specific topics  i think respect for life it’s important and the more the time passes it looks like human and animal life value is completely disappearing in our mind and we are becoming all cold and greedy. All we care is our own wealth or good. Sometime we act like we care but as soon as it requires an effort to support our ideas, those ideas become all of a sudden just to heavy for us. It’s important specially to fight for animals as our empathy for animals is almost 0. Modern life turned animals into an object to our minds so fighting to defend them is vital.
I don't know how the sxe and animal rights scene is now in hc, but i fear that there are always less and less bands bringing this issues up. I hope i’m wrong about it and most important i hope that even if there are no bands talking about it, there still are a lot of people caring about it in the scene.

12.  What are your thoughts on the whole “tough guy” scene? A lot of people seem to view this as a place to parade their new band shirts and new dance moves and don’t really care about the message, sometimes even hurting others in the process.
Josh: I’ve always been a supporter of being physically involved at an hc show and enjoy it in full force, but absolutely against any form of careless violence or tough attitude. I think hc scene is no place to show off or to get rid of your frustration with being violent and hurting people. I think hc  shows should be a bunch of amazing kids being there together exploding with emotions and having fun together singing dancing stage diving and doing all this together.

13.  Are you planning on getting back into the music scene at one point?
Josh: For now my life is on board of the ship, but we often talk about making a band on the ship, we have some gear like amps and drums, but nothing serious yet. I surely miss to be on stage, but it’s also all about finding the right people to do it with. To Kill were my friends and family also outside the band i think i need to build a really special connection with someone to make a band.

14. How’s the Italian scene right now? Blame It On The Ocean and A Faded Glory will come here soon. Can you recommend other Italian bands?
Josh: Sadly I’m completely out of the loop right now. All i know is what my friends told me which is that the hc scene in Italy is not doing too good right now. I always suggest My friends in Jet Market and Strength Approach :)

15. What are your future plans with Sea Shepherd? Are you going on the next expedition?
Josh: Operation “Divine Wind” is underway. We are now sailing to Australia to pick up new crew and then start sailing down to Antarctica. The Bob Barker is already in Australia and the Brigitte Bardot is halfway to get there. It will be a really amazing and intense campaign. Apparently Japan spent something like 27 million dollars in security measures against us... this makes me think that is going to be really intense. After that I don't know what the Steve Irwin will do but I’m not planning of leaving the ship.

16. Thanks a lot for the interview and all the best to you and the rest of the Sea Shepherds.    
Thank you very much i really appreciate it! Go Vegan.



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