INTERVIEW: MY TURN

I first saw My Turn in Jack’s studio. They were recording their demo (Noble Intentions) and I was enjoying my last day from a romantic trip to Greece.  The romance is gone, but My Turn isn’t.  I am happy to say that I finally managed to see them play live after 2 years at Fluff fest and in Prague and it was even better than I expected!  They are even cooler because they accepted to answer some questions for us. Here it goes.

  

1. First of all, thanks a lot for taking some time for this interview. We know how busy you guys are! Tell us a little about your band, a short history and about the music.

Nikos: Actually I am the less busy one cause I don’t have a job like the others, although I study at the university.  My Turn were formed during the summer of 2010, with Fotis on guitar, Markos on drums and Apostolis on the mic, spent some time rehearsing with no bass player and then Sergios joined in. There was a change on the line-up during 2011 with Drosos taking the place of Sergios on bass. And on spring of 2012 I joined My Turn as the bassist, which was like a small personal achievement, cause I’ve listened to these guys from the very beginning and I’ve been to many of their shows, and I was also a close friend of them. My Turn from the start wanted to write sincere aggressive music with honest and touching lyrics about personal and socio-political stuff as well. We strongly believe that hardcore/punk is more than music, no matter how cliché this phrase is.

Apostolis: Hey, first of all thanks for your endless support. We appreciate it more than you could ever imagine. I think that Nikos pretty much covered everything, concerning the band history, with his answer. My Turn was something that we were all searching for and we are very proud of being a part of this. Keep this in mind; we are here to stay. 

INTERVIEW: MIKE ASSATLY (BEARTRAP)

1. First off, thanks for the interview, the BearTrap and Witch Cult shows in Romania were definitely one of the highlights for me this year. So, let’s get to it, what’s up with you and the band right now?

A month after we got home from our Euro tour we did a 43 day full United States tour. We just had a new 7inch, Sleep Eradication, come out on To Live A Lie Records (www.tolivealie.com) Now we have just been sitting home for a month doing the "real life" sorta thing

INTERVIEW: SECTARIAN VIOLENCE

“Sectarian Violence is five hardcore punks that come from three different countries. Through touring, arranging shows and doing fanzines we got to know each other and came to realize that we wanted to do a band together. A band that would throw hardcore and straight edge into a social and political context.”

They will come to Cluj in April,so we decided to catch up with them and have a glimpse in how they see the scene and the world. Here’s what Staffan had to say:  

 

1.   The first thing that stands out about Sectarian Violence is that you guys are from 3 different countries, 2 different continents even.  How does that work and how did the band start?

My Swedish band Stay Hungry went on tour with Never Again during the spring of 2010. We were worried that the Brits would consider us to be total idiots, and it turned out the they had concerns about the same thing on their end. In other words: we fit very well together and had a lot of fun. For the Edge day show in Gothenburg later that year, I booked what came to be the second to last Never Again show, as well as Coke Bust, who were on tour in Europe at the time. We had a lot of fun, including sumo wrestling suits and Americans breaking stage floors and drums, adding to the trail of destruction that follow their countrymen across the world. Somehow, the idea about a new band was born there, which probably had some to do with the fact that Never Again was breaking up. The plans were perfected over Internet and that’s basically it. The band works mostly online in that sense. To rehearse and record, I head over to the UK. It might seem impractical, but it depends on what you compare with. It is not much more expensive and doesn’t take much longer time than when I rehearse with Stay Hungry, which is a four hour bus drive away from Gothenburg, where I live. Nick can obviously not fly over the Atlantic Ocean just to rehearse though. It’s not perfect conditions but it is what it is. This set-up has other pros.

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.

INTERVIEW: GREG BENNICK

      Professional speaker, documentary producer, writer and singer it he bands TRIAL and BETWEEN EARTH& SKY, Greg Bennick is by far one of the most influential figures in hardcore in the past 15 years, and was nice enough to take some time off his busy schedule to answer some questions for us.

1.  It’s been more than 15 years since Trial started, how do you see yourself now? How much did you and the band change in these years?

    GREG: I see myself largely the same as I did when the band was really picking up speed.  There was a definite shift in the band between the sort of pre-Trial line up with the first two records, where the personnel of the band and the songs we were creating were simply hardcore songs with intent of communicating potent feelings and ideas, and then the "Are These Our Lives?" era when the lineup solidified and the songs got way more intense and powerful.  Three members quit permanently to play metal instead of hardcore, and that left Timm and I able to find people who wanted to take the band to another level communicatively.  Of course that all changed in 2009 with the death of Brian Redman our beloved bassist, and it was only in the last few months that we've found our stride again in terms of feeling connected to one another once again as a group and about the ideas and feelings we're sharing.

INTERVIEW: CENTRO 73 (squat)

This September I was delighted to find out, that a group of activists residing in Chisinau opened a squat called Centro 73. The “official” opening party was held on 25'th of September, and received quite a bit of media coverage by some local TV stations, news websites etc. I wanted to learn more about this project, so I decided to ask some of the people directly involved in the opening of this place.

1. Tell us a few words about the project. How did it all start? How/why did you get involved?

Rosa: It's hard to only say a few words about the project. I guess it started with three guys getting interested in squatting, looking for buildings and finding this one. This was when I got in, I'm a volunteer from Germany and after my first week in Moldova I heard a rumour about a squat. From that moment I was searching for it desperately and I got to know Anatolie (who had already heard about my interest in the project) who offered me to take me there. So I went and I loved it. Soon after we had a big clean up and due to the insecurity about whether the building would stay or not we decided to quickly have a public opening. And this is where the whole socio-cultural centre thing started. We started to have regular meetings, organize events, etc. I got involved and was (and am) so interested in this, because this is what I believe in and what I like doing, because I think there can't be enough free spaces in a city to help people develop their minds and thoughts independently from the usual every-day influences, from commercialism from prejudices from discrimination.

Christina: I wasn’t there yet when it all started. I came to Chisinau a couple of weeks after the place was taken over and given new life already. I heard about it on my 2nd day and knew that that’s the place where I really needed to go as soon as possible. So I did. And I took my Moldovan friend, who had heard about it but hadn’t been there, right along. That was Friday. And Saturday was a party there. And Sunday they made food… and Monday I already started to participate in the weekly meetings and participating in organizing stuff.

INTERVIEW: NIHIL BAXTER

NIHIL BAXTER ain't nuthin' ta fuck wit'!

1. First of all, we must say that WE LOVED the name of your tour with Bob Rooney. What made you decide to do the tour?

Markus: Well, I don't know, the Bob Rooney guys asked us if we want to come on their already booked tour, so we just jumped on the van.

2. Why did you tour with Bob Rooney?

M: Like I said, they asked us to join, so we did.

Friu: Yeah, we didn't know them very good before the tour, we just played together once, but they are a bunch of awesome dudes and we're very happy that they asked and we joined.

3. After you got back home, you made the AWESOME new song “Don’t get killed in Thrashsilvania”. Would you consider the tour a total success?

M: Thank you. We wrote the lyrics on our way home in the van and two days later in our rehearsal room we put the song together and recorded it. The  tour was definatly a sucess and expierience, beside that it was our first tour abroad. Financially we didn't got out but we had a great time, met some very cool people and have seen a lot.

Jo: It was absolutely great. Some of the best shows we ever played.

INTERVIEW: ASBESTOS IN OSBESTRICS

They play fast thraschcore and this is their first interview. Unfortunately, in the meantime they split up, but Peter was kind enough to answer a few questions....Here it goes!

 

1. So. This is your first interview ever! First off, please introduce yourselves – tell us something about A.I.O. . Who came with the idea for the band? How did this all begin?

With the hype around Municipal Waste reaching its peak, Hans decided to start a band with a similar style. since we all live in the same town and are all making music for a long time we knew each other from different occasions and founded the band.

2. What’s with the name?

The name has a bad spelling mistake. It is taken from some beavis and butthead episode. It was originally asbestos in OBSTETRICS.  But with the typo it sounds cooler and puts out the nonsense factor.

3. You played 2 shows in Cluj. What made you come back for the second show?

We played our first gig, and afterwards we partied so hard with the promoters of fabulous TBC they thought it would be cool to have us again. We had a day off so it worked. We went down to Bukarest played the show and went back without stopping. It took us 19 hours total. Thats how things have to be done: just fucking go!

 4. At the second show, you had the AWESOME opportunity to share the stage with The Business (the father of street punk, Oi! & british hc punk. lol.). How do you feel about that? Was it a memorable experience, as it was for us?

About The  Business i don't have much to say. I never liked oi! music, and the whole soccer themed crap, so it was rather boring to me. I really didn't know that this band existed until we were asked to play support.

INTERVIEW: UNITED AND STRONG

They toured Romania 3 times, released one album in 2008 - “Transit”, toured with Confronto, 25talife, Questions and next year they are celebrating 10 years of existence. These 3 boys and one girl are United & Strong and they were nice enough to answer a few questions for us.

1.So you've played Romania 3 times ,some thoughts about the scene?

Christian:

For me your scene seemes to be pretty united. Cause all the people that made the shows on our tour know and respect each other and the special thing about the Cluj/Bistritia crew is that they are all still friends over the years and stick together. Seing all these different people still together, just being friends and having a common aim is always great. This is the speical thing about the romanian scene.

INTERVIEW: VODKA JUNIORS

 We will start by posting the interviews we've done for the past issues... and then we will continue uploading articles, mainly by theme. (interviews, recipes, diy crafting, etc)

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They’re not your typical hardcore band. Playing for ten years they started as a hardcore punk band with some thrash and skate punk elements but now, with “Dark Poetry”, they’re experiencing with a dub / acoustic / surf rock sound. Vodka Juniors formed in Athens in 2000 and since they’ve toured Europe several times and most recently they did an exclusive Romanian tour.

1. How come you decided to make a tour only in Romania?

O&K: Paul BHCB had the idea and emailed us about it. All the capitals and big cities in Europe are very similar. The exciting part of touring abroad and not playing Athens everyday is to meet new cultures and play the strangest, smallest, most distant places. We enjoy gathering weird experiences. The only way to do this is to go somewhere and spend at least a week going up and down the country. We’ve played one off shows in other countries and its ok. But this is different because in Romania now we have a new home.

2. We all noticed that your merchandise was for free, how did you manage this?

O&K: We sell drugs. Also we work really hard during the rest of the year and instead of buying cool amps and guitars we invest all the money in making our stuff as accessible as possible to everyone trying to keep our band and money separated even if it’s really difficult. The downside is we can only tour for a couple of days per year, but on the good side these days are usually an emotional bloodbath. You must come to see… and ask for drugs.