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This is another one of those moments where 10 years ago I would never have imagined this would ever take place. I am organizing a show and interviewing one of the most influential hardcore bands of the past decade. This band is called Terror. For those who don’t know this legendary band – they are a great mix of what is called New York Hardcore which mixes the speed and energy of punk rock with the aggressiveness and power of metal. To get a better idea of Terror’s power and aggressiveness check out their music on: www.myspace.com/terror I can’t believe I’m interviewing Scott – vocalist of Terror! As someone who has been promoting hardcore for so many years – I can’t begin to explain how important it is that you guys come out and support this show! At least to even see and feel “hardcore” in its truest form!
Hey Scott this
is Riz from King Ly Chee and I’m putting on your Hong Kong show! Hahahahaha…so this is amazing that you guys are coming out to the rest of Asia! What are some myths that you guys want to dispel? Well, our friends in Madball have visited Thailand and they’ve said it’s one of the greatest places on earth! Hahahahaha…so we’re very excited to get down there to see what he’s talking about! But really, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but we’ve toured Europe maybe like 10, 12 or 15 times, we’ve toured the US and Canada a bunch of times, have been to Japan and Australia 3 times, so this is definitely very exciting on a band level to travel do new countries and see new bands.
How did this
Asian tour come about?
Awesome! Tell me about this crazy $10 for 10 bands tour that you guys just did! It sounds crazy! Well, it was pretty fucking amazing. We were one of the only bands that was on the tour the entire 5 weeks. The tour had us, Madball, Bane, Death Before Dishonor, Poison the Well, etc., and everything went great. There was great energy and tons of people came out. None of us knew what to expect with the economy so fucked up, but people came out. I was wondering how the organizers of the tour were able to cover all their expenses with such a cheap ticket for so many huge bands? Well I can say that none of the bands asked for their regular payment on this tour. Every band wanted to support this show so they lowered their performance fees so that this tour could happen. All the bands just wanted to show those people who have supported all of us for so many years that we still care about them and took a loss by doing this tour.
The whole
point of this tour was to show people that music is what matters.
There are so many bands that are trying to get on the cover of this
magazine or that magazine, or be in videos that make them look
pretty etc., and we just wanted to do this tour to support those
people who have been supporting us even when the economy is fucked
like it is now. So I’ve read that you guys have toured with Behemoth! What was that like? Man – that was fucking amazing! It was actually part of a festival tour that we did kind of similar to Warped Tour and Ozz Fest. We were on this tour with Behemoth, Black Dahlia Murder, Chimaira, As I Lay Dying…it was fucking amazing.
Were the
Behemoth guys into Terror?
That is
awesome that Terror can be part of such a metal show/festival! This is going to appear in a couple magazines that don’t have a huge hardcore-listening audience. And we’ve been promoting hardcore here in China for the past 10 years, I know this is a hard question to answer, but what do you think is the essence of hardcore? Well it’s hard to give a definitive answer. I think the essence is that hardcore is more than just a musical style. There are bands out there who sound totally different from traditional hardcore bands but I would still call them hardcore because they are hardcore kids getting together. I also know of bands out there who play traditional hardcore and call themselves hardcore but they don’t care about this culture because they don't even come out to support shows or other bands. These bands don’t even care to learn about the history of the culture.
As a kid I’ve
always been into music. My brother was into punk and so I listened
to it. I liked the energy and the aggressiveness about the music,
but I wasn’t into the look and attitude of punk rock. Then when I
went to one of my first hardcore shows and there was this energy in
the air, I was hooked from that day on. Now I was also reading somewhere that one of the reasons you left your previous super influential band Buried Alive was because they asked you not to talk about hardcore on stage? In 1999 that band was pretty much coming to an end. Everyones musical influences started to change. They told me not to talk about hardcore on stage because no one else in the band really cares about it. They said that I was the only one that cared about this stuff. It was just that they were much younger than me, maybe 23 at the time and I was 27, and they were still trying to figure things out. I have no problem with that because people change. People come and go through hardcore and some people stick around forever. But once they started to head in that direction and tell me not to talk about hardcore I knew it was over for me. I’ve always been into bands that have meaning whether it’s Tom Petty, Madball, Coldplay, Gorilla Buscuits, The Police, all of these bands have lyrics that speak to me and have something to say. I mean people just change. I’ve changed to! When I was in Buried Alive I was vegan! So I’m not saying that I’m a “saint” – people just change, we all end up eating our words one day. So how did you go from a band like Buried Alive to a much more traditional hardcore band like Terror? In Buried Alive the band was already around before I joined them. So they already had music going and I was really good friends with them and would come and watch them practice. They would always ask me to sing and then finally I did because they needed a singer. After awhile they started changing and I left the band and moved out here to the West Coast. When I first moved out here I wasn’t thinking about starting a band at all. I mean, playing in a band is so competitive whether people want to admit it or not, and you have to deal with so many people talking shit about you, being negative about you, and it’s hard on relationships, so I wasn’t planning on diving back into that again! But then a friend gave me a cassette with No Warning and Carry On and it really got me psyched to do a band again. At the time hardcore was going through a weird stage. Bands like 18 Visions, Bleeding Through and Poison the Well were taking over hardcore, and even though they’re all my friends, it just wasn’t the hardcore that I grew up listening to. Merauder and Madball have always been 2 of my favorite bands and still are and when I got a call from members of Carry On to start a band, I did. Well okay man – thank you so much for your time! Any last words? I would like to say that we’re very excited to get over there. We don’t take this stuff lightly to be able to play our music to people all over the world. And since this is for a metal magazine I would urge the readers to check out bands like Madball, Gorilla Biscuits, Warzone, Merauder, Hot Water Music – who are more of a rock band but are probably one of my all-time favorite bands. SEPT 26, 2009 TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!! VIDEOS OF
THE OPENING BANDS: KING LY CHEE SHEPHERDS
THE WEAK NO TURNING
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