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Interviews with White Trash Rob
The question of "what does Ramallah" mean came up recently, so I thought I'd post a few interviews. Many of these are becoming harder and harder to
find, so I'm gonna repost them in their entirety below (thanks google cache!). If you have others, please include them.
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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BDx13
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No idea where this is from. Found it through Google cache.
RAMALLAH
AN INTERVIEW WITH ?WHITE TRASH? ROB LIND
BY MIKE RAMEK / PHOTOS BY CASEY DAVIS
OUR EVENING BEGINS DEEP WITHIN THE PUNGENT DUNGEON THAT IS THE CBGB WOMEN?S ROOM. EVEN HERE, GRAFFITI ADORNS JUST ABOUT EVERY VISIBLE EDIFICE, LAYERS
OF GRIME COAT THE WALLS AND FLOOR, AND A FOUL STENCH WAFTS THROUGH THE DECAYING HOVEL. A STEADY PROCESSION OF SMARTLY DRESSED CHELSEA GIRLS, HARDCORE
GIRLS AND A VARIED ASSORTMENT OF SPIKES AND PATCH-ADORNED PUNKS SAUNTER IDLY BY, GLARING AT US INQUISITIVELY.
ACROSS FROM ME STANDS ?WHITE TRASH? ROB LIND, THE OUTSPOKEN MASTERMIND BEHIND A NOW INFAMOUS ARRAY OF BOSTON-BASED OUTFITS. HE HAS BEEN THE DRIVING
FORCE BEHIND THE RAGING BLOOD FOR BLOOD, THE ANTHEMIC SINNERS AND SAINTS, AND MOST RECENTLY, THE SOCIO-POLITICALLY MINDED TORRENT OF ABRASION THAT IS
RAMALLAH. HIS VOCIFEROUS, VITRIOLIC STAGE PRESENCE IS TRULY SECOND TO NONE, AS HE HAS NEVER BEEN ONE TO MINCE WORDS. BEHIND A FOREBODING VENEER,
HOWEVER, LIES A NOTEWORTHY INTELLECT THAT SERVES TO INFUSE HIS MUSIC WITH A POWERFUL RESONANCE AND WEIGHT. IN AN ATTEMPT TO CONDUCT A SOMEWHAT
COHESIVE INTERVIEW AMID THE ENSUING CHAOS THAT WAS THE BLOOD FOR BLOOD / RAMALLAH / SUICIDE FILE SHOW THAT EVENING, WE HAD RELOCATED TO THE SWELTERING
COMMODE AFTER BEING HOUNDED BY A DRUNKEN SKINHEAD OUT IN THE HALL.
AMID THE FLUSHING OF TOILETS, IDLE CHATTER, AND PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF EXTREME INTOXICATION, I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO ASK ?WHITE TRASH? ROB ABOUT HIS
VARIED MUSICAL PROJECTS, HIS BACKGROUND, AND HIS GENERAL OUTLOOK REGARDING A WIDE RANGE OF ISSUES SPANNING US FOREIGN POLICY, URBAN DECAY, AND THE
HARDCORE SCENE AS A WHOLE. DESPITE THE FIERCE AND SOMETIMES FRIGHTENING REPUTATION THAT HAS ENSHROUDED THE VARIED PROJECTS COMMANDEERED BY MR. LIND, I
FOUND HIM TO BE AMONG THE MOST ARTICULATE, INSIGHTFUL, AND FRIENDLY PEOPLE I HAVE EVER HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO INTERVIEW.
YOU HAVE BEEN THE FORCE BEHIND THREE PROMINENT BANDS THAT, WHILE ENCOMPASSING A LIKE MINDED UNDERLYING RAGE, EXIST AS MUSICALLY DISTINCT ENTITIES. THE
FEROCIOUS, CLASS-CONSCIOUS RAGE OF BLOOD FOR BLOOD, THE MELODIC PROWESS OF SINNERS AND SAINTS, AND THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS BLUDGEONING OF RAMALLAH
COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER WELL, BUT OBVIOUSLY SERVE ALTERNATE PURPOSES. IF YOU COULD, HIGHLIGHT THE DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS OF EACH BAND IN YOUR OWN WORDS,
WHILE TRACING THE INCEPTION OF EACH, AND FOCUSING ON THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY SERVE TO COMPLEMENT ONE ANOTHER.
Blood For Blood was just a band I was playing in when I was 18 years old. Our sole goal in the beginning was to play what we considered to be real
hardcore, which is based upon the New York style, bands that me and Buddha (Eric Medina) were listening to at the time? Sheer Terror, Madball, AF.
There was nothing like that in Boston at the time. We just wanted to see our friends beat up Allston scenesters at The Rat?that?s all we cared about.
It started to pick up, and after the first CD I realized that we were starting to reach a larger audience, and really starting to resonate with the
people we were speaking to. It [the band] was sort of a tool?I know the way I grew up, and I know other people grew up the way I did, so we just
started injecting that into the lyrics. Blood For Blood acted as an epitaph of sorts on my childhood, my upbringing, and my youth-wasted or otherwise.
We were just telling our stories about what I consider a lost social strata.
We started adding elements of rock and roll?my brother?s band The Ducky Boys were taking that direction, and Blood For Blood started losing steam
during the Dropkicks tour (ironic because that was the best tour we ever did, we were starting to see a yield at every show). I knew the other guys in
the band were losing interest. I called my brother from the road (he was having similar problems with the Ducky Boys), and I said ?why don?t we get
together, and do this rock and roll thing we?ve been talking about for years??, and that was Sinners and Saints. We had all these songs that were too
light, or too weird, or too stylized to be a Blood for Blood or Ducky Boys song, so we just got together and tried to play songs that were similar to
those we had been listening to when we were thirteen and fourteen.
Ramallah represents my social and political views that I?ve had since I was fourteen or fifteen. The catalyst for the band was 9/11?these are the most
significant times that I have lived in?times that demand statement and perspective, some sort of reaction. That was my reaction.
?RAMALLAH? SEEMS TO SERVE AS A LOOSE CONCEPT ALBUM OF SORTS, DELVING INTO THE ISRAELI/PALESTINIAN CONFLICT, AND USING THAT ONGOING TRAGIC FEUD AS A
METAPHORICAL IMPETUS FOR A BLEAK ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN CONDITION AS A WHOLE.?
It?s funny, the general tone of the flak that Blood For Blood got for years concerned the responses elicited from kids that felt excluded from the
band, who saw a communion between Blood For Blood and the people that were resonating with the band, realized they were never going to be a part of
it, and were threatened by it. It brought out a uniquely American perspective that is ?if it didn?t happen to me, and I can?t relate to it, then it?s
not real, and it?s a farce.? I touched on this in the liner notes to ?Outlaw Anthems?. Through Blood For Blood, I show you a picture comprised of
music and lyrics?an emotionally laden yet unambiguous picture, and you can react to it in any way that you choose. Most people, when shown a photo of
a run down ghetto, respond by saying ?well, my picket fence needs mending, so where do I stand with you??. They edit what doesn?t apply to them, and
they take in that which does. Unfortunately, what we sing about is real for virtually 95% of the people we play for all around the country. Ramallah
was just a step further. If your average American can?t relate to poverty and social decay in their inner cities, how can they possibly have a valid
viewpoint on a global situation, a global perspective?
IN REFERENCING BOTH US GLOBAL POLICY AND THE AFOREMENTIONED ISRAELI/PALESTINIAN CONFLICT, THE LYRICAL PULL HERE, DESPITE WHAT THE EFFORT?S TITLE AND
ARTISTIC LAYOUT MIGHT SUGGEST, DOESN?T OVERTLY SEEM TO TAKE SIDES, AND INSTEAD FOCUSES SIMPLY ON THE HORROR INHERENT IN THE ESCALATING VIOLENCE THAT
IS A BYPRODUCT OF THE TROUBLE IN THAT REGION AND BEYOND. WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL STANCE ON THESE ISSUES?
I?ll relegate it to US global policy. We can?t put out a mattress fire in our own back yard. Look at the crime in Detroit, look at the crime in
Newark, New Jersey?in inner city New York, Philly, Boston?we can?t successfully contend with that, but we?re going to run around imposing our
perspective and doctrines all over the world?
One thing that is conveniently ignored by the media are the blatant true-isms that exist in our foreign policy. If you want to make a conscious
commitment to OPEC, that?s fine, it could be considered to be in the best interests of the nation, but don?t hide it from me, don?t play games, don?t
say we go into countries for humanitarian reasons because that?s preposterous. It?s ludicrous to the point of absurd. We?re not over there for those
reasons, we never have been. Just look at the manner in which we dealt with the Kosovo incident. We start dropping bombs, atrocities rise 2000
percent, but we?re there for ?Humanitarian reasons?, except now whole villages are being burnt, and gassed as quickly as possible. We exacerbated the
whole situation.
Now we have terrorism. For years we did things in the name of anti-communism, the policy of containment. That then lost its charm, so for about 10-15
years everything we did was for ?humanitarian reasons?, a farce to say the least. Now Anti-terrorism. We?ll sell it to the American people, and
they?ll sit in bars, drink and agree with it, and never explore the roots of this aggression, and the roots of Anti-American sentiment.
Now, it would be irresponsible of me, an outsider, to be particularly polarized towards one side or another [in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict]. We
received a threatening letter from an umbrella organization associated with the ADL. I understand the impetus behind this letter. This person who
wrote it was an Israeli and US citizen, and his family suffered egregiously, and he has personal losses. It is impossible to get perspective in a
place where the blood never gets to dry. The conflict is exacerbated every day. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were to take place anywhere else
in the Middle East, the dominant force would simply exterminate the subordinate force, but there is so much attention paid to that particular region,
to that particular vicinity, that the logical course is not allowed to occur, and it?s just this perpetual petri dish of hostility. I know there are
two sides to this conflict. As an American that has not had to contend with something as awful as this yet, it is irresponsible of me to take a side,
except to say that it simply cannot continue as it is now. I don?t think any sane person wants to see that happen. But it seems that the government
officials, the reckless leadership on both sides with veiled agenda, are very happy and content to allow things to continue as they are. It takes
focus off their domestic policies and so forth. As long as there is a perpetual conflict, you ignore domestic situations, because you keep the
populace in a state of fear.
THE PRODUCTION ON THE RAMALLAH EP, COURTESY OF KURT BALLOU OF CONVERGE FAME, IS QUITE GOOD?.TALK A BIT ABOUT THE RECORDING PROCESS?.
It was excellent. It was one of the best experiences I?ve had in the studio. I?ve worked with the same person in the studio for the past ten years?
Jim Siegel from The Outpost, who is a good friend of mine, probably my best friend in the music business. I rely on his opinion, implicitly,
fundamentally, but Jim has a certain way of doing things, and Kurt has a different way of doing things, and I thought with Ramallah, the material
would be best suited for someone that was in the heavy music trenches?Kurt couldn?t be any deeper. He?s got a unique character, so his recordings have
a certain sound, and I wanted to have the freedom to say ?Hey, what happens if I run this amp backwards? What happens if we set a mike six feet away,
and see what happens.? He?s a very can-do person. He wants to try anything on the spot. I like that attitude. It was refreshing. Knowing that Jim from
The Outpost, who I think is the best producer on the East Coast, certainly in the Northeast, gets a very contemporary sound, a very straight ahead
radio-esque sort of sound, with the big guitars and huge drums. I didn?t think that was necessarily well suited for Ramallah. I wanted something more
raw and aggressive, and I knew Kurt could do that, and he did.
I KNOW JACOB BANNON CONTRIBUTED TO THE PROCESS AS WELL?WHAT ROLE DID HE PLAY? YOU CAN HEAR HIS VOCAL WORK IN THE BACKGROUND AT VARIOUS INTERVALS ON
THE RECORD?
Well, when it was coming together, I knew the music was going to be really dark, really dissonant and very apocalyptic sonically. I had this screaming
voice in my head, and I initially thought of Mike from All Out War to do it. I was not very familiar with Converge, but I thought that Jake from
Converge would really fit that sound as well. To make sure that I knew what he sounded like (I had all these preconceived notions from the exposure I
had had with Converge in the past), I went out and bought Jane Doe, and it fucking blew my mind. It?s an incredible record. Once I heard Jane Doe, and
it reaffirmed what I knew he was capable of, I knew I had to have him work on this project. I contacted him, and he was very amicable right from the
get go. Jacob is definitely an artist, and I don?t use the term lightly or liberally, but he is. He views his music as art, and proceeds from there.
THE CITY OF BOSTON COMES INTO PLAY REPEATEDLY IN YOUR VARIED PROJECTS. THE EXTREME CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THE WEALTHY AND
IMPOVERISHED IN AREAS OF THAT CITY HAS ALWAYS SEEMED A FOCAL POINT OF YOUR WORK. I UNDERSTAND YOU HAIL FROM THE CHARLESTOWN PROJECTS IN BOSTON?TALK A
BIT ABOUT WHERE YOU GREW UP, AND HOW IT HAS INFLUENCED YOUR WORLD VIEW?
It?s the single greatest contributing factor to Blood For Blood?s perspective. I grew up in the projects, I grew up with a lot of class envy. I grew
up surrounded by yuppie money?
THAT AREA IS NEAR HARVARD, RIGHT?
Yeah, it?s about a mile from Harvard. It?s surrounded by some of the most affluent areas of Boston. It breeds a lot of hatred, a lot of violence. It?s
not the absolute worst, but it?s not the best by a long shot. But more importantly, I consider it a lost social strata. It?s white people in the inner
city in poverty?
THE NEIGHBORHOOD IS PREDOMINANTLY WHITE?.
Yes it is. It?s as poor as you can get, all welfare, all projects. Addiction is a way of life for everyone by the age of thirteen?it?s not even
questioned. One of the things that really nailed that home for me was when I was hanging out with my buddy who was in the Ducky Boys, this kid Mike O?
Leary, a really good guy. We?ve been through the wringer together as far as drugs and shit like that. We both sweated through the dark side of
withdrawals. Off the cuff one day, he said ?you know, everyone we grew up with is a junkie.?, and he said it laughing, and it just hit home. I had
contemplated this before, but the fact that this kid trades drugs with his parents ?the parents get pain killers, they trade it for coke from the
kids. This kid just casually mentioned it, but that?s his life, he doesn?t know any different.
That was what motivated me to get that perspective out there, because I crossed the country when we just started touring out, and we kept playing in
front of, and finding, and hanging out with, dudes that were just like us, coming from the same scenarios. Not necessarily all inner-city?I know I
harp on that in the lyrics, but that?s just to get a point across, to be illustrative of the fact that you can be street and poor, and you don?t have
to be a gangster or a minority. I just realized that there were so many people across the country who had lived the same lives and were dealing with
the same shit?everybody going to jail, addiction, violence, domestic violence, broken homes?the whole nine yards, real poverty. I just decided to talk
about this, because no on else was.
HOW DO YOU GUYS VIEW THE HARDCORE SCENE AS A WHOLE, WHATEVER THAT COMPRISES IN YOUR MIND? WHILE YOU HAVE ALWAYS VOICED A GOOD DEAL OF SKEPTICISM
TOWARDS THE CURRENT STATE OF HARDCORE, YOU CONTINUE TO PLAY SHOWS WITH YOUR VARIED PROJECTS?WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THIS DISCREPANCY?
We?ve never been buzz worthy, we?ve never been hot, we?ve never been hyped, we?ve always just been who we are. I always used to tell Buddha in the
beginning when he was wondering why things weren?t happening for us, I used to say, ?We aren?t one of those bands. We aren?t a fashion trip, we don?t
have one particular facet of out lyrics that we exploit. We just are who we are. We just have to weed through all these indie scenes, and pick up a
bunch of crazy hateful punk kids, skinheads, and hardcore kids. We will ultimately accrue all the disenfranchised men and women.?
We?re not accepted. As much as we have our own virulent cult following, all the visible representations of hardcore are basically everything that I
railed against as a kid. Generally, hardcore is comprised of privileged, narrow minded, encapsulated white people?it?s a pastime, they?re facilitated
by their parents. You have a thousand zines that are devoted to these bands that are floating their boat and in fashion, the flavor of the week. The
people who go see Blood For Blood don?t write zines, they don?t make web sites. The come down in between trips to prison. We?re a very incidental
interest?it?s not a focal point of their lifestyle. It?s just an incidental thing that they can come down and enjoy, have a few beers, and have a good
time. It?s not the cornerstone of their identity or anything.
We?re the enemy of what I consider fashionable hardcore. We?re everything nobody wants to hear about. We?re an element that no one wants to be part of
these things, and I revel in that. I think that in this day and age it is disgusting that anybody could immerse themselves whole heartedly in a small
codicil of a small section of underground music. How blind can you be? Look what?s going on in the world, and you force yourself, relegate yourself
within this narrow parameter of music. It disturbs me. It?s very American.
ON YOU EXTENSIVE TOURING, DO YOU SEE A LOT OF ATTITUDE-WISE SCENE WISE DIFFERENCES IN THE CROWD ON THE EAST COAST, VERSUS THE MIDWEST, VERSUS THE WEST
COAST? WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE PLACES TO PLAY, AND WHY?
New York City has become one of the best places to play. It was a tough nut to crack. Initially, we didn?t get any reaction, and then all of the
sudden it went from two people dancing and everyone else just standing around looking at us, to this really virulent, crazy reaction after we had gone
away for a little while. Detroit has always been one of our favorite places to play by far. Oakland?s great?Powerhouse, all the OBHC guys?Sacramento
is excellent. Maine?s always been violent, I don?t know if that qualifies as good. DC has always been excellent. It took us a long while to get down
there, but once we started playing in that vicinity, it was excellent. Texas is great.
TO WRAP IT UP, YOUR LYRICS, MUSIC, AND FRENETIC STAGE PRESENCE CAN BE INTERPRETED IN A LOT OF DIFFERENT WAYS. THERE ARE A LOT OF WAYS AT LOOKING AT
WHAT YOU DO AS A THREE DIMENSIONAL BAND, JUST AS THERE ARE MANY WAYS OF INTERPRETING THE LYRICS AND MUSICAL APPROACH. REGARDLESS OF ONE?S SUBJECTIVE
INTERPRETATION, WHAT WOULD YOU HOPE THAT SOMEONE WOULD GET OUT OF SEEING BLOOD FOR BLOOD, SINNERS AND SAINTS, OR RAMALLAH LIVE, OR LISTENING TO YOUR
RECORDS?
Probably to appreciate that this is as close to reality as you can get within music. Non posturing?well, although we do grandstand a bit onstage. I am
my drunken self up on stage, but I?m certainly not like that 24-7. I?m obviously literate and articulate, to an extent.
I?d want people to understand that I play music that is not pandering to anybody.
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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BDx13
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from Bridge9
http://www.bridge9.com/bridgenine/band-files/ramallah-interv...
1. The name of this project, Ramallah, is taken from the Palestinian city now occupied by the Israeli army, correct? Why name the project after that
specific city?
I used the name of that specific city because it seems to me to be the epicenter of all the atrocity and inhumanity associated with the region, the
policies associated with the entire region, and a metaphor for all further global conflict which is often in my opinion criminally portrayed as a
conflict between ?western ideals? and all ?others?. I also chose ?Ramallah? as a name because it has unmistakably Islamic/Muslim connotations
associated with it and I knew that in the present sociological / social climate, such a name might slap otherwise apathetic, anesthetized listeners
out of their ?pop-culture? induced haze and make them pay attention, for better or for worse.
Jesus?I sound every inch like the many intellectuals from Harvard that I despised growing up haha.
On a more serious note, the band and the label have already been informally contacted (and casually threatened) by an umbrella group connected to the
Anti-defamation league. They suggested that if the band were taking a pro-Palestinian stance, we (the band and the label) might end up on a national
watch list that includes such musical luminaries as Bound For Glory and Skrewdriver.
In response to such criticism (present and future), I?d just like to say that Ramallah is a band that's agenda is empirically anti-inhumanity and
anti-atrocity (and against the notion of innocent people suffering at the hand's of reckless and unaccountable leaders and administrations with veiled
agenda). If these principles offend or are considered "hate", than I have nothing further to comment. I believe the lyrics speak for themselves. They
are clearly not religiously or ethnically specific in their bias or support of agenda or policy (I do not support ANY present state OR non-state
policy associated with the region).
Some of the imagery and content is incendiary but it is unfortunately no different than the images that shriek at us all from CNN and the newspapers
everyday (images that in my opinion are disturbingly without impact on all strata of our society that I am exposed to). And unfortunately we live in
sickeningly apathetic times which require the PR equivalent of a baseball bat to the head to capture someone's attention.
To be honest I am completely unnerved that the name of a city (regardless of it's present turmoil) could illicit such a response. And considering the
nature of the band's agenda, threats of academic and intellectual intimidation translate to nothing but reckless censorship
I should point out however that the concerned party in question acquiesced once the facts about Ramallah were presented to him. I should also point
out that the concerned person in question has suffered egregiously as an Israeli citizen as a result of the present conflict in the vicinity. I
understand implicitly that personal passions run strong where the blood never dries.
2. In the past, your lyrics tend to deal with a sociological perspective of personal events, but lyrics on "But A Whisper" seem to take a cue from the
international arena. Would I be right in believing that Ramallah is the closest thing Rob Lind has made to an overtly "political" statement? If so,
what's inspired you to delve deeper into external world events, rather than personal, internal ones?
It is so difficult to even begin to address with any degree of sophistication the subjects at hand in the format of an interview.
I?ll present it like this: I grew up in the projects in relative poverty (and by relative, I mean on an international level: the bulk of the people
that will read this interview had better not allow themselves the luxury of believing that they can understand OR dismiss what I?m referring to). The
projects that I grew up in are nestled conveniently and within a mile or so of Harvard University and Beacon Hill (two of the most affluent regions of
Boston). Now if such a socio-economic contrast prompted me to start a ravenously anti-social punk band and walk a path completely outside of any
societal norm, can you imagine what some guy that grew up in a sub-third world environment surrounded by a post-first world environment might feel
motivated to do with his rage (I.e. where the contrast is infinitely more stark)? And that?s excluding the ethnic, religious and sovereign
implications of the present conflict in the vicinity.
On a personal note, I am also very tired of 35 year old men parading around on MTV in ?nu? metal bands, bitching about how they couldn?t communicate
properly with their mommies. So, adhering to my own rhetoric, I have very specifically toned down the level and amount of my own personal anecdotes
and memoirs previously associated with BFB in regards to Ramallah (regardless of how much more poignant and relevant my personal bitching is than The
Disturbed?s haha).
3. On the track "Sleep," you mention the date of August 20, 1998; is that a reference to Clinton's decision to launch strikes against alleged
terrorist bases which resulted in the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan? Wasn't that the incident that spurred parallels to
the film "Wag the Dog," as the media saw the strikes as a diversionary tactic to take interest away from the Lewinsky affair?
The song you are referring to is actually ?Al Shifa? and yes, that is the incident that I am referring to in the song.
I thought it was important to mention that specific incident because it is one of many similar incidents that are virtually unknown to the U.S. public
yet it is one that strikes a resonant chord with many of the grass-roots and street level elements that fuel anti-U.S. sentiment across the Islamic
world. I also chose it because of the mind boggling severity of the death toll and impact it had on the afflicted region.
The bottom line is that most of these people that we believe we are at war with don?t hate us because we have MTV and Coca Cola and free speech and
all that. They hate us for very specific incidents; incidents that have dates and death tolls. Most people that I have come in contact with are
completely unaware of such events.
I don?t want to someday have to receive a cell phone call from one of the very few people I love from the rubble of a building that was collapsed on
top of them. If we continue down the one sided path we are on, the chances are greater that I?ll have to receive that call. I don?t have enough of an
investment in this society to gladly forfeit one of the few that I hold dear due to irresponsible policy that could easily be changed if we opened our
eyes collectively to obvious and fundamental flaws in perspective. So my investment in the lyrics is selfish to that degree.
I have never seen the film ?Wag The Dog?, though I am very familiar with the principle and I wouldn?t doubt such a scenario and motivation was behind
the incident in question.
4. Is the phrase "not made for these times" in the lyrics for "Al-Shifa" an intentional allusion to the Brian Wilson album?
Someone else asked me that. I am not that familiar with the Beach Boys or Brian Wilson, other than that he is a well-known nut and burn out (I
empathize wholly). No, it wasn?t intentional.
5. True or false: Rob Lind is actually a Humanist, horrified by what human beings are capable of doing to each other, but refuses to look away.
Haha yeah, I guess it hurts one?s ego to find that one can be so easily quantified, but I guess you?re right.
6. On "But A Whimper" you sing and play all instruments except drums. Blood For Blood is sporadically active, and you're also playing in Sinners and
Saints with your brother, Mark. You've also--finally--begun to write commentary on your own web site, www.whitetrashrob.com It seems that once Blood For Blood ceased being a full-time gig, Rob Lind made some very specific choices about how his
energies would be focused. What were some of the decisions you made, and conclusions you've come to? Did you intentionally create Ramallah without
having to really rely other musicians, for instance?
As to the latter, yeah, I didn?t want to have to rely on anyone else so I did it myself.
As to all the rest, I will continue to do BFB, S&S, and Ramallah to whatever extent I can do each. Believe me, I got nothing? better to do but dope.
7. How did Jake Bannon of Converge end up contributing vocals for three songs on "But A Whimper"? Will Bannon be more involved with Ramallah in the
future? My understanding in that Ramallah will also tour; true?
I just gave Jake a call one day and he was down for the project. I knew even before I started to work on the songs that the material would be
extremely aggressive and heavy, so Jake seemed a natural to do some vocal damage with Ramallah. I am very grateful for his contribution to the MCD and
I hope to continue working with him. The guy?s a true artist.
Ramallah is definitely going to tour as soon as possible.
8. Can you tell me a bit of the inspiration for song "True Crime"? It's musically beautiful, but lyrically disturbing. Is the contrast intentional?
I?ve found that most of the most virulently asocial, non-functional violent offenders that I know and love come from cataclysmic childhood trauma.
Monsters in my opinion are not born, they are made by years of systematic abuse. ?True Crime? attempts to illustrate that recipe / scenario. For some
reason, I felt that the lyrics shouldn?t be buried in some typical hardcore sludge and should be sung with the dignity and sobriety they deserve. I
hope I got it right.
9. In closing, what are three things that you consider beautiful?
Truth, justice and oxycotin.
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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BDx13
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from Flex Your Head
http://www.flexyourhead.net/interview_display.php?id=107
Only those privy to the sonic fury of Boston hardcore band Blood for Blood and the debut Ramallah EP (But a Whimper, on Bridge Nine Records) feel the
anticipation teeming for Rob Lind's new Ramallah full-length. Essentially a solo project, with vocal help from the incomparable Jake Bannon of
Converge, Ramallah is an outward projection of Lind's aggression and rage, directed at the state of the world today, on a much darker, heavier scope
than his songwriting in Blood for Blood. With the new CD currently being recorded, and due out in February of 2005 on Thorp Records, Lind is
anticipating some harsh reaction to a batch of songs he hopes will get in people's faces and shake them up. If they are half as controversial and
ass-kicking as those on the Bridge Nine EP, we're all in for a hell of a ride.
Jason Schreurs spoke to "White Trash" Rob Lind via his ever-beeping cell phone in early December, 2004.
How do you feel Ramallah is different than the other bands you have been involved in?
Other than the obvious sonic differences, Ramallah being a lot more metallic, heavy, even more simplistic if that's possible, it's the perspective.
Blood for Blood is an expression of life as I've lived it up until the last album. Ramallah has turned that perspective outward at everything else...
Society, the repetition of the problems in this society, perpetrated on a global scale. I thought the time was right and I had been kicking around the
idea of doing something really aggressive and heavy for awhile and, in the turmoil and vacuum left after 9/11, it just seemed like the right time. And
the new CD will obviously take that a lot further.
The EP was very angry and aggressive, but somehow very positive too. So I'm assuming on the new record, since not a lot has gotten better in the
world, I'm wondering how it is shaping up, as far as the message goes?
Well, first, it's the heaviest thing I've ever done. It's also the most grandiose as far as giving myself over to my creative impulses. The piano on
it, the keyboards, the percussion ? these things will play second fiddle to the overall impact of the songs, they're just part of the overall punch or
attack. The lyrics... I can't describe as positive or negative. I don't ever try to specifically to be either, I just write whatever is on my mind.
But the lyrics are infinitely darker and infinitely more charged. They will rub people the wrong way, of that I have no doubt, but I feel that they
are truths ? granted, from a certain perspective ? that need to be heard. We hear the media's perspective on everything, and the media reads a script
? end of story. I'm voicing some other perspectives that haven't been heard but are equally true to those that hold them and we'll see how that rubs
people.
Do you really feel that people pay that much attention? Obviously, there are kids in the scene that really want to hear messages but, for the most
part, I've found that in the last five or six years, hardcore has become really watered down.
The thing is I don't intend to aim this at hardcore or hardcore kids in general. I have no respect for the genre anymore whatsoever and I wonder if I
ever really did? Maybe I was a little bit infatuated with it when I was younger and overlooked a lot of inconsistencies. I mean, I loved the bands
that I loved and I'll never stop loving them, but on this CD I'm not even attempting to push it as hardcore or bring it to people that I discern as
considering themselves hardcore.
If you are on a smaller hardcore label though, at some point it's like bands have to sign onto a bigger sort of mainstream company, just to get their
message out there, if you want to get it out to the average-type person. Who is your target audience with the messages that you have?
Anybody who will listen. Blood for Blood used to play in front of Earth Crisis audiences early on. They didn't know what to make of us. We didn't
resonate with them one way or the other. By the same token, we were labeled a "tough guy" band, and we would play with "tough guy" bands and their
audiences didn't really know what the fuck we were about either. And [Blood for Blood singer] Buddha used to say, "What the hell are we gonna' have to
do to get in front of people," and I was, like, "What we're gonna' have to do is get in front of every single genre, and every single little
subdivision that was eked out of hardcore and punk, and what will ultimately happen is, we'll attract and pull in all the really angry kids from
virtually every genre's audience." I have no preconceived notions about not playing with this type of band, or not playing with that type of band. I
will play with anybody with this particular project. I wanna' get in people's faces.
You have to reach as many people as you can, but you don't want to sell your soul. How do you do that?
As soon as someone says to me, "You've gotta' change that," or, "You gotta' not do that," that would be something I would find intolerable and I
wouldn't put up with it. I would part ways with any sort of entity or organization that would try to direct what I do.
I'm trying to get a handle on your politics. I read one interview with you that was really in-depth about the Middle East and what's going on in the
world. Is there a way that you could sort of put it in a nutshell, so it's easy for people to understand?
I can at least try to give you an idea of where I'm coming from. I grew up in the projects and I grew up poor, that is no mystery to anyone who has
picked up a Blood for Blood album, but... and I mean dirt poor. We had nothing. My mother was raising three kids on welfare for something like $700 a
month. So I grew up in that social strata. And I see that social strata all around the country and it's a very silent sort of Petri dish. No one talks
about it but it exists, time and time again. These are the types of people that have nothing all of their lives and when they attempt to step out of
line and get more than what they have, they get thrown in jail and labeled menaces, and so on and so forth. But then, when some sort of situation
brews with big business needs, a military strike to aid Wall Street or something like that, these are the first people that get called on to go die,
subjugating other poor people that have nothing else to look forward to themselves. So, I just kinda' look at it from that perspective. I view global
politics from that perspective. On any given situation, whatever drum the media is beating, it's falling on deaf ears with me. I'm certainly not
gonna' fall in line and believe what I'm told. I'm gonna' scrutinize it from my perspective and the way I've grown up.
Important Ramallah related links!
White Trash Rob: http://www.whitetrashrob.com/
Thorp Records: http://www.thorprecords.com/
Bridge Nine Records: http://www.bridge9.com/
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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BDx13
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Sinners and Saints interview from sleazegrinder
http://www.sleazegrinder.com/int_sinnersandsaints.htm
You're not the only one that's gonna see the light: Sinners and Saints
How we rock
There isn't a band out there with a more fitting name than Sinners and Saints. Their music is a soaring, fist pumping rush of pure American rock and
roll, as loud and bracing as it is sweetly melodic and tinged with melancholy. It's the sound of world-weary storytellers with arena-ready hooks and
shout-along choruses that you'll take with you wherever you go. With nods to everyone from Social Distortion and the Backyard Babies to Guns N' Roses
and Bruce Springsteen, it's modern day classic rock in the literal sense of the term. But it all comes from a much darker place, a place of busted
skulls and rampant rabble-rousing and the hardest of the hard. Sinners and Saints front men (and brothers in blood, as well as rock) Mark and Rob Lind
are both battle-scarred vets of the punk rock trenches with an impeccable pedigree to boast. Mark was a founding member of Boston street punks the
Ducky Boys, who's working class anthems and chugging rock and roll were the foundation of Sinners and Saints' sound, and Rob was the main man in
berserk, ultra-hardcore legends Blood For Blood, a band known as much for the mayhem their live shows would cause as they were for their bludgeoning
war music. After the simultaneous demise of both of their bands, the brothers decided to reach back into their roots, and create the kind of rock and
roll they grew up with, before the mad flurry of moshpits and mohawks. Not just an easy musical comparison, Sinners and Saints are a literal Soul
Asylum, a place of solace and a refuge for all the ragged tattooed warriors and the hopelessly disillusioned and the sad, silent crazy people left
lonely and exhausted from a life rife with pain, poverty, or punk rock. And although the sound has been sweetened, angry flames tempered with age and
experience, anyone writing off Sinners and Saints as glossy, mainstream rock are either too young to know any better, or entirely missing the point.
The brothers Lind have already been tougher than leather and hard as nails, and it's time for them to move on to calmer waters. Mark and Rob both know
that there's something beyond rage and frustration, beyond flying the flag of anarchy and chaos. Beyond all that, if you're lucky, is redemption.
Music sets the sick ones free, after all, and Sinners and Saints truly believe that rock and roll has the magical powers to heal even the deepest
wounds. 'The Sky is Falling" (Bridge 9), their debut album, is their tribute to that unwavering faith that a well-placed power chord or a stray lyric,
in the right place at the right time, can make everything alright.
Something's wrong with my radio
"Anyway, our bands both went tits up at the same time." I'm sitting in the booth of a noisy neighborhood bar in Somerville, Ma. with Mark and Rob in
late July, listening to the Sinners and Saints story. Rob takes center stage, drawing pictures in the air with his cigarette, choosing his words
carefully, like a man that's used to explaining where the blood on his shirt came from. "Blood For Blood and the Ducky Boys both toured and broke up
right after. We were both touring the country at the same time, we were criss-crossing. They had been at some town two days before, and vice versa. We
were touring with the Dropkick Murphys, and they were touring with some bands that didn't really make any headway. I saw the writing on the wall. The
bands were having problems, and I just decided, "Fuck it, when I get home I'm starting up a rock and roll band". I wanted to take a crack at all these
songs I was writing. In my last two years of Blood for Blood I was not, in my free time or with passion, writing hardcore songs. I was writing rock
and roll songs, like you hear on the Sinners and Saints CD. So, I came back with the intent to do something like that. You know, aggressive, and with
energy, but not afraid to incorporate all the influences of things that he and I were both listening to." His decision was aided greatly by the
direction that the Ducky Boys had been going in just before their demise. While on the road, Mark played a new song for his brother over the phone,
and the die was cast. "I was just checking in with him, and he played me one song- "Nothing at All", which ended up on the Sinners and Saints CD. I
was in this backwoods shit-hole bathroom with piss on the floor in Canada, listening to this fucking song, just a beautiful, haunting song, and I
practically dropped the phone", he remembers. "I realized that there was an entire other world of music that I wanted to be part of and I couldn't
make it happen within the framework of Blood For Blood. I knew that I was at least going to have to attempt something else. Hearing that fucking song,
my jaw dropped, I was pumping quarters into the phone so I could hear the whole thing. It just made me realize that he's doing it, he's my brother,
and it was like something I had fantasized about doing." And so, as soon as they both got home, Sinners and Saints was born. Although they didn't play
on the album, the line-up was soon rounded out by Anthony Papalardo on bass, and Jason O'Donell on drums. With a newfound commitment to a singular
vision, Mark and Rob began writing the songs that would ultimately find their way on to "The Sky is Falling". With all the freedom to write exactly
the kinds of songs they wanted, influence and inspiration came from many different sides of the rock spectrum. "He and I are both stark raving fanatic
Bruce Springsteen fans", Rob says. "He's also a ravenous Tom Petty fan. But even outside that more 'adult contemporary' end of rock and roll, I was
blown away by Turbonegro, and some of the other bands like that. I really wasn't listening to metal and hardcore when I was doing Blood for Blood, I
was listening to Turbonegro, Social Distortion, obviously Guns N' Roses, and the band that was really into at the time was Oasis. They just pulled my
heart. As poppy as they were, or at least what my friends would consider pop, there was just something pure rock and roll about them. I think they had
articulately definable characteristics of what I consider great rock and roll. They were hypnotic and transcendental; it was beautiful, and it was
jaded, cynical, and optimistic all at the same time." You can hear those same elements in Sinners and Saints, too. In fact, the songs on "The Sky is
Falling" will remind you of just about any time you've ever turned on the radio and heard a song that you just knew was your new, possibly all-time
favorite. This, Rob tells me, is all by design. "We just wanted to play music that we grew up with, music that we wanted to hear. We wanted to write
songs that we wished were on the radio, but nobody else is delivering."
Story of my life
"We know the measure of each other", Rob tells me, when I ask him what it's like to finally be in a band with his brother. "He'll probably tell you
that he hates my guts if I get up to take a piss, though." The former Ducky Boy laughs. He's obviously the quieter of the two. Sitting in the shadows
throughout the interview, Mark listens intently to Rob's words, adding just what he needs to. It's probably been like this forever. "Well, at least I
know he won't quit", Mark jokes. "Other guys might come and go, but he's here to stay." Rob agrees. "We know each other implicitly and fundamentally.
We're closer than friends. It doesn't hurt that we're brothers, it definitely helps." Sitting here with the two of them, it's hard to imagine that
these low-key, friendly rockers with authentic Boston accents spent so much time in the eye of the punk rock hurricane, both beacons to a legion of
angry, working class youth. Rob has an explanation, though. "I've got to be specific about this, because I've been asked about it a lot", he says. You
know, 'You guys have a very working class element, it's very honest, it's very gutter, and it's very unflinching', but to be specific, I don't think
that I, and consequently my brother and the neighborhood we grew up in, could be qualified as 'working class'. We grew up in the projects, which I
think would qualify as one step lower, like lower class, or poverty class. Food stamps, all that. And everybody", his hand sweeps across the table,
signifying all the people he and Mark grew up with, "came from broken homes, with violence, domestic and otherwise, and addiction was just a casual
thing. Everybody that I grew up with is either dead, in jail, or a stark raving addict that can't function without shooting up, without exception.
There was never anything for us to aspire to beyond that."
We must begin in blood, so we may end in blood.
This lifestyle of poverty and frustration was not forgotten when Rob and Mark eventually formed their respective bands, and for Rob at least, this
lifetime of struggle culminated in Blood for Blood's startling legacy of brutality. The Ducky Boys were no stranger to the odd dust-up, either. "We
didn't really have that much violence", Mark says of the DB's. "Yeah", Rob agrees, "With his band, there'd be a bar brawl here and there, but the
violence was almost...friendly." Blood for Blood, on the other hand, was like "Lord of the Flies" on a nightly basis. Rob has his theories for this
blood soaked phenomenon. "Well, that's difficult to elaborate on in a short amount of time", he says, "but I have some specific assessments of why
that went on, and I've spent a lot of my free time, assessing, in a sociological capacity, the reasons for some of the violence. With Blood for Blood,
it got to the point were it was horrifying and disgusting. Some of the things I've personally witnessed are going to keep me from getting into heaven,
just for looking at them. There had been times when I wanted to wash my eyes, from some of the things that I've seen when I was playing, or just
around the phenomenon that was Blood For Blood." I suggest that for some, the mayhem might have been more of a draw then the music, that some people
might have gone to BFB shows just to fight. "Well, they wouldn't walk away from a fight, that's for sure", Mark jokes. "Some did", Rob admits, "Some
paid their money at the door to go in there and get in some shit. I started to view it like this- there's a lot of aggressive music out there, angry
music, anti-social and anti-societal music, and I certainly think that Blood for Blood would qualify as all of the above. People that are attracted to
aggressive, anti-social music have usually had a certain level of trauma in their upbringing; some have seen more traumas than others. Sometimes
people act on that trauma, they respond to society the way society's responded to them. So you have one of these kids who's a true sociopath, a true
thug. So if you've got a show with 500 people, 5 of them are going to be truly violent, and if they go along enough, they're going to find the other
people like them." Rob sips his beer, a thousand fist-fights flashing through his brain. "My personal experience is 99% of the violent people that
I've met- I don't mean the functionally violent, like guys that like to throw punches once in awhile, but people that cannot function in a normal
society without doing something truly evil- they, more often than not, grew up with lives that the average American couldn't really understand. I'm
talking about things like child abuse, be it sexual or otherwise. Almost to the person, that's the case. So if they come across music like this, of
course they're going to relate to it. So you have people that aren't wrapped too tight in the first place, and you add booze, and this aggressive
music, and of course something's going to happen." As for his role in all of BFB's madness, Rob doesn't deny it, but he's quick to point out that it's
all behind him. "As far as the violence goes, when I was younger, I loved it", he states, in all honesty. "When I saw violence at the shows, I reveled
in it. I was so inarticulately angry, for a variety of reasons, and I hated the world so much, that people would be stabbing each other, and I'd know
it, because I'm up on stage, and we'd keep playing." He lights another cigarette, and shakes his head. "We wouldn't stop and try to break it up, or
even try to settle it down. As I've gotten older, I've started to ask why I hate, and I've had to come to terms with why I am the way I am, and why I
view the world the way that I do. I don't want to contribute to that kind of mindless violence anymore."
Don't look back in anger
In Sinners and Saints, it seems, his point of view seems to be just the opposite. Although Sinners and Saints' lyrics are full of hard luck stories,
they're laced with a quiet dignity, and the songs on "The Sky is Falling" are more about closing the door on a life of agony than they are about
embracing the maelstrom. "My perspective hasn't changed", Rob shrugs. "The best way I can respond is to say that these are the songs that I've been
writing in the past couple of years. Whatever world I was in, whatever state I was in, whoever I was dealing with at the time, whatever I was exposing
myself to, these songs I wrote in complete honesty. They're the songs that got me out of bed at 5 in the morning when I'm sweating and the walls are
closing in on me and I feel like I've got something that I've got to get out. These songs are me, they're very much who I am. There's a subtle
difference in these songs, because I'm not holding back, but I'm not trying to preach in Sinners and Saints. In Blood for Blood, I used the songs as a
vessel to tell the world to fuck off. The Sinners and Saints songs are just honest songs that I'd been writing in my spare time. I'm not using them as
a platform for anything. If I ever feel the need to, I will. If I ever have songs that lean more to the autobiographical, or social commentary, I
will, but that's not the driving force of Sinners and Saints."
Axl is a punk rocker
I mention Guns N' Roses to Rob and Mark. After all, they were just as capable of creating havoc as Blood for Blood. "Oh, on a mega scale", Rob says.
"Like the Montreal riot", his brother adds. "Oh, yeah. I remember reading an interview with one of them, Izzy I think, and he said that people would
beat the shit of each other during "Don't Cry" and fuckin' "Patience". He couldn't understand that phenomenon, that impact that they had on people",
Rob tells me. Guns N' Roses, just like BFB, brought out the rock and roll beast in people. "They had that huge Roman, Bacchanalian, aggressive,
transcendental element. When you listen to any of their CDs, and this isn't relegated exclusively to Guns N Roses, but great rock and roll in general
allows you to transcend yourself for two minutes. No matter how miserable or faceless you are, while you're listening to that music, you're soaring.
You're a little bit more than yourself. Peter Steele, when he was in Carnivore, one of my favorite bands when I was growing up, said that "Music is
great therapy." I disagree with him subtly. I believe that music, that great rock and roll, is not therapy, but it offers you the promise of therapy.
It offers you some kind of relief, finding some kind of truth within yourself. It may never deliver, but there's always that promise, that yearning
for being something better than you are." Which neatly brings us back to Sinners and Saints, a band that also has that rare power to transcend,
uplift, and ultimately, to heal. "When I hear of somebody talking about our band- not necessarily likening us to Guns n Roses or bands like that, but
seeing us as having that same sense of freedom that Guns brought to people- if I can do that for even three people, than I think it would all be
worthwhile", Rob says. "It's this intangible, religious thing that good rock and roll provides, the sense of being high without getting high. It is a
drug, a religion, life, death, rebirth. You know, I don't flatter ourselves and think that that's what were doing, but if I could do that...well, I'd
give my life to do that." If their masterful debut is any indication, I don't think he'll have to go to such extreme measures, as Sinners and Saints
are headed straight for the same pantheon as their heroes. "Well, regardless of what happens, We're just going to keep doing it, trust me." And I do.
"I'm not going anywhere, and neither is my brother. We'll keep doing Sinners and Saints until we go down in flames."
For more info... www.sinnersandsaints.net
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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soulless
Junior Member
Posts: 98
Registered: 5-10-2005
Location: Western MASS
Member Is Offline
Mood: everybody out
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http://www.cym-creations.nl/articles/introblind.html
On 26 October, I was at the Boston Back On The Map Tour with Slapshot, Blood for Blood and The Bluebloods in Hof ter Lo in Antwerp. I had prepared
interviews for both Slapshot and Blood for Blood. I had some precious hope that I would be able to talk to Rob Lind too, so I had some questions
especially for him. Ian, the bass player of Blood for Blood told me that it wasn't likely that I would be able to talk to the guy, but while I was
standing in the hallway backstage, Rob passed by and I asked him if he would like to do an interview, the answer was "Yeah, why not".
Normally I am not that impressed by a person as I was of the person Rob Lind (Blood for Blood, Ramallah and Sinners and Saints). Therefore I can't
make up which questions I should scrap from the interview I did with him. It might be a little long, but it is the way it was:
With Ramallah, Sinners and Saints and Blood for Blood you must have pretty much to think about, How do you combine these bands in your daily life?
Right now, I don't know? it is hard to say? Right now I am mostly looking forward to do a full length for Ramallah, that's the band which I've got the
most material for, that's the band with the new material that I am most excited about. I think whatever label I end up putting the full length on, it
is going to be something significant, not the label, but the Ramallah full length is gonna be something else, it's gonna be really important. I've
been working on the songs now for well over a year and a half.
But as far as which band is the most important to me, that will probably be Blood for Blood and Ramallah right now, Sinners and Saints is kind of on
the back, my Brother works fulltime and he hasn't got a lot of time to do touring and shit like that, and we were having a hard time touring with
Sinners and Saints anyway, because nobody really knew what the fuck kind of music we were.
So we're not really emo, we're not really like, you know, turbo Negro or something like that. Nobody knows what the fuck Sinners and Saints was. We
were having a hard time finding shows anyway, so now we headline our own shows every once in a while just for fun.
But it's probably between Rammallah and Blood for Blood. Right now I am more excited to do a Ramallah full length then I am to do a Blood for Blood
full length.
You write kinda all the songs, how do you decide when you're going to write a song for Ramallah or when you're going to write a song for Blood for
Blood?
I don't know, that's a funny question, I just know what's right, which one goes with which, Blood for Blood to me has a very specific sound and style
and attitude, and Ramallah has a different sound, style and attitude so they just seem right.
Blood for blood is recording an EP on the 20th of November for Bridge 9, and while I was getting the songs ready for the Blood for Blood release, I
noticed that a couple of Ramallah songs got cropped up in the Blood for Blood list. I got rid of them because I don't want any crossing up the two
bands.
I don't think they've got anything in common whatsoever, Blood for Blood has nothing in common with Ramallah and Ramallah has got nothing in common
with Blood for Blood except that both bands are aggressive and heavy, that's it.
And you.
And me yeah, that's true.
You don't have a job beside the bands, do you?
Not right now no, I've been out of work for quite a while, about a year. The band hasn't been helping out that much. I mostly just back on that, and
bills and shit like that.
I've been wrestling with a serious drugs problem for about a year and a half now, but things are starting to come together now, I guess. I want to pay
off some of the bills with the tour, I guess, I don't know. No, I haven't had a job for quit a while.
When you've got a job what do you normally do?
Load trucks mostly, shit like that mostly, just typical meathead work.
Just something to do?
Just something to do exactly.
You did recordings with Kurt Ballou for the 7 inch, how did they go?
They went really well! Kurt's really creative. He is fun to throw ideas at because he often responds with an idea immediately. We got to do some cool
stuff with guitar sounds and guitar effects and vocal effects and vocal styles and shit like that, and it was really fun.
When you work with somebody like Jim from The Outpost, who Blood for Blood usually works with, everything's gotta be like one way. It comes out
sounding great, it comes out sounding professional and big budget, but he doesn't let you fuck around a lot. Everything is kind of black and white, it
either works or it doesn't work, but with Kurt, you can try anything, the guy doesn't know how to say no, it may not work, but at least you get to
try, where it is with the Outpost, it either works or it doesn't and it's either in or it's out, and that's about it.
Are you going back to the studio to record more or is it finished?
I am looking for a label for Ramallah right now; I don't know who the hell it is going to put it out. Blood for Blood like I said is going in, on
November 20th, to do an EP for Bridge 9. Just four songs, outside of that I don't know who is going to do the Blood for Blood full length, I don't
know who is going to do the Ramallah Full Length, we'll see, I guess I'll take it as it comes.
I've got some opportunities, two choices, and I would like you to choose between them.
If you had to choose between an anarchistic state or the American dream what would you choose?
See it's funny like I probably lean towards the Chomsky socio anarchist sort of perspective, but if the American dream would truthfully adhered to,
and if it were honestly pursued, that would be the best way for the world to live, I think.
I truly believe in democracy, I believe in one person, one vote, one voice, one say it, one person can make a difference.
That would be in the case I would like to believe in the American dream, but unfortunately the American dream as it stands right now, it's fucking
dead!Because unless you've got loads of money, you DO NOT count in the United States of America, you DO NOT fucking matter unless you are rich, the
wealthy are the only people that matter in the United States of America! End of fucking story!
MONEY dictates policy, MONEY dictates death, MONEY dictates destruction, cooperate greed dictates how we behave in the Middle East which in turn
affects how Islamic fundamentalists in their turn behave in the United States and kill civilians, and it is always the US civilian that's the one
that's got to die for all the bullshit that the companies, the cooperation of power, has to deal with. It is people like me and the guy next to me on
the train, who have got to die for their fucking greed. Cause WE are the ones that have to go off in war and WE are the ones that die.
So as it stands, the American Dream, right now, is dead. But I would like to see it live, and if I had my choice: that is my choice. I WOULD Chose
democracy and I WOULD choose what America at least stands for on paper in the Constitution.
I swear by the Constitution, as does Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn, and Michael Moore and Edward Sa?d, God rest his soul.
Do you consider yourself as counting in American society?
I definitely DO NOT count in American society. Me, my family, my social equals, we are all WORTHLESS, we are forgotten.
White trash?
Yeah, definitely, and I am just ignored and forgotten! And there is loads of social equals throughout the country who are just sort of pushed out to
the fence and forgotten about. I do not believe I count, and I do not stand up for America. I will not stand up and say; "yeah", you know, "go USA".
Fuck that, I mean, see it my way for a change.
Next Choice; Music or Unity?
Music, I don't give a fuck about Unity.
Friendship or Brotherhood, if there is a difference?
I guess technically there shouldn't be a difference. The two words are pretty much synonymous.
I don't have any sense of family, so brotherhood is out, I guess I found my family which are my friends, so I guess I gotta go with Friendship.
God or Allah?
I think they are all the same, Jawe, fucking Jehovah, Allah, they're all the descendent from the God of Abraham, and they're all various
interpretations of monotheism, so to me there ain't a change at all, they are all the same. Ideally, they all offer humanity the same pieces; peace
and security, and love for the fellow man, but, when in the wrong hands, it can be so easily twisted and corrupted.
I don't know what to make about religion in general, I know it has been a huge driving force throughout sociology, sociological history and human
history, but I don't support one or the other, I think monotheistic religions are ultimately the same. They can be corrupted or they can be adhered
to, but they are very rarely adhered to. They are mostly corrupted and mostly twisted, that's all I really have to say about that. That's a
complicated subject I might need more time to discuss that?
?well, I'll say one last thing though, in relation to the last subject, right now, this is difficult, I am treading on slippery stones here? Right
Know I would say, that the Muslim religion, the religion of Islam is probably the most beset throughout the world, it is probably the most
beleaguered, that's all.
Which people do you hate most, a group, one person, whatever?
It is funny, I would say that I hate the average MTV watching American, but those idiots are everywhere. They're in every society. They are in every
culture, the mindless sheep, the masses, whatever, I don't know.
It's funny like I am kind of an misanthropist, but whenever I meet individual people, I generally like them love them. I can empathize with anybody, I
understand why people are the way they are.
I don't know, I don't understand my own feelings on humanity, I hate it, I love it. It's all there is, we don't have anything else do we?
We can't do with them and we can't do without them?
Yeah, there is no real choice, we're all stuck with each other I guess, we are not getting along though. Things are not working out.
Some people say that you are shy because you normally are not really present at gigs, you stay in the touring buss till the beginning of the gig, and
after the gig you go back again to the touring buss.
Yeah that's true.
Have you got a reason for that?
Yeah, I am afraid of people, and I am afraid of the world, and being out of my house, and..
I don't know why, I've tried to find reasons my whole life I don't know what. And I've found some reasons, and some of them seem to work, but
ultimately, I find life very unpleasant to live. I find just existing painful. I don't know why, I've tried to figure it out, I wish I knew, maybe it
is genetics, maybe it is the way I grew up.
So I find it very difficult to be around people and strange places and shit like that. I hide from that sort of situations, so yeah, I come out and
then we play, and then I go back and I hide again.
That's basically it.
How can you manage to be in a band being scared of the world?
Drugs. I medicate myself. It is the only thing that I have found, which makes life palatable for me, is drugs and alcohol. I drink heavily since I was
eleven years old, and over the past 3 years I found like hard, hard, hardcore drugs. Without them I cannot function. That simple. I can't come out, I
can't come out of the house, I wish it was different. I really wish it was different, Like I cannot stand living this way, and I don't know how much
longer I can go on and doing it, but it's where I am, I don't know.
How old do you think you're going to get?
How old? I ain't going to make it to 32. I'll be dead within the next two years. Everybody that I talk to tells me that I speak as though I have not
much time left. I don't think I do. And I don't know if I wanna stick around, but I would give anything to not feel this way. I just would love to
find some way to just not feel this way, I am just very tired of it.. that's all?
You've got a girlfriend don't you?
Yeah I've got a girl who I am very close to, yes.
Does she know about you thinking like this?
Yeah, but she doesn't understand the drug addiction, she thinks when I run off and do drugs, I am, you know, cheating on her or something like that.
It ain't like that, anybody that has stayed with an addict before will tell you, don't align yourself against the addiction. It is not fucking
personal! It is choosing between pain and not pain, and you can't expect somebody to choose pain, they choose the path of lease resistance. People
choose what's less painful.
It is just survival for me. I don't think there is anything cool about drinking, I don't think there is anything cool about drugs, I just fucking need
to do them to just be able to breathe comfortably, because otherwise I would go and blow my fucking head off and I probably will, I've been thinking
about it for a year or two?
I could say you shouldn't, but that probably won't make a difference to you.
No, I just can't help it.
Is there anything people should know about you?
Not really, I don't think so. I don't know. Yeah I can say one thing, that I would like people to know about me, I am not an ignorant hick, uhm. The
drunken loudmouth that comes out in Blood for Blood, that's just what it is. It's a small part of me, that's it. I am not a fucking idiot; I just
stretch the imagination.
Then I think that's it.
Thank you very much, that was a good interview.
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JawnDiablo
Posting Freak
Posts: 12139
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thanx for posting these guys...it was good reading
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SS76
Posting Freak
Posts: 1586
Registered: 5-6-2008
Location: CT
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Mood: RAMALLAH
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some old interviews I'd never seen...worth the read if you haven't already 6 years ago..
Silence is golden but violence is platinum. |
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Mark Lind
Posting Freak
Posts: 1900
Registered: 9-18-2004
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If you want I can just start posting random quotes when I talk to him.
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CR83
Moderator
Posts: 5221
Registered: 1-23-2004
Location: STL!
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Mood: Harm's Way
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This is a great reason why your brother needs a twitter account pronto.
Also, I hope these interviews being posted are a way to sort of tell us that something is coming from him (fingers and toes crossed)
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BDx13
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cr83, notice the date on these posts...
If I fail math, there goes my chance at a good job and a happy life full of hard work.
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Discipline
* DRUNKEN MONKEY *
Posts: 11900
Registered: 9-8-2004
Location: Over here
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Mood: The Alley Dukes
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‘Do you know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun. Straight through your heart.’
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Mark Lind
Posting Freak
Posts: 1900
Registered: 9-18-2004
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I agree. That's also why I made him a FB page. He was gonna become the admin of it but he just never bothered asking for instructions.
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Six66Mike
Posting Freak
Posts: 3090
Registered: 11-20-2003
Location: Queensland Australia
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Mood: Dead Hearts
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Make a Twitter, Shit Rob Says.
A lot of people ask me what kind of music I like. I love "soul music". My "soul music" isn’t a style, genre or niche. It’s music that is genuine. It’s
a painful lyric, a dirty bassline, it’s a harrowing vocal, it’s feedback, it’s an anthem, it’s a love song, it’s anarchy. I’ve got my personal
favourites but in the end it doesn’t matter who or where it comes from... so long as it’s good and it's real.
- Paul Morris, music director at 97.7 HTZ-FM
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CR83
Moderator
Posts: 5221
Registered: 1-23-2004
Location: STL!
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Mood: Harm's Way
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So this is a prelude to something? Riiiiggghhhtttt? Just taking a while? Ummmmmmmmm
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