Give Blood Zine/the Hope Conspiracy interview

The third issue of Give Blood Zine came out of a few months ago now. It was a split release with the final issue of my friend Sean's zine, the Sharpend Zine. I think it's the zine I've been most proud of. For the first time ever, I managed to release a zine where I liked everything about it. I really like the layouts and the front cover, I think some of the interviews are the best I've ever done and I think my review style is better now than it has been in the past. I only have a few copies left myself but I know Sean still has a heap, so please hit him up if you're interested. A lot of cool bands are covered.

I don't know when the next issue of Give Blood will be out, or hell, if it will even happen at all. I'd love to have something out at the of this year, but we'll have to see how time/money/my motivation goes.

Here's my Hope Conspiracy interview from the zine. I think it's the best interview I've ever done, so I may as well put it in a place where as many people as possible can see it.

Firstly Kevin, how’s your week been? What music/books/movies etc. are keeping you entertained at the moment? 
Currently I am listening to Hawkwind, reading Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose and watching my Mario Bava dvd sets.

What’s been happening with the Hope Conspiracy lately? What have you guys got planned for the next few months?
Well, we played 2 great shows in December and January. One was a 35th birthday party in Chicago for our friend Jim Grimes. It was with Suicide File, Ringworm, Turmoil, Blacklisted and a bunch more. The other was the Paint It Black record release in Philly. We also started writing again and have some new material in the works. How far it goes is anyone’s guess, we'll see.

Hope Con was inactive for a couple of years before you started playing shows again in 2005 and then released ‘Death Knows Your Name’ at the end of last year, why the extended break? What the hell did everyone do with their lives during the couple of years of ‘normality’? haha
Well, I think as a band we hit a wall back in 04. The wheels really started to fall off the wagon. I think we were at a crossroads with the band itself and with our own lives. Being in a band is sometimes the best and worst thing all wrapped up into one package. When things are good they are amazing and when they are bad it's depressing as hell. When you are pushing 30 it’s hard to justify being broke because you are in a full time hardcore band.

After such a long break, did you ever toy with the idea of just ending the band? What motivated you guys to keep going after a multi-million dollar lawsuit and a 2 year hiatus?
There was times when it crossed our minds to kill it. But, even in the worst of times we always remained friends so it seemed like a break was a better decision. We knew at some point we would collectively get our shit together and want to write again with no pressure and no expectations. There is nothing worse than when a band announces they are breaking up and having a "FINAL SHOW" and people fly from the four corners of the world to come see them in all their amazing glory and then a year later they are touring Europe and writing a new record. What the fuck is that shit? 

When you joined Neeraj Kane and a bunch of guys from Minneapolis to start the Hope Conspiracy at the end of the last century, did you ever think the band was going to go as far as it did? Is it mindblowing to look back and know that you’ve traveled to mainland Europe, Australia, the UK and even Iceland, all because of a stupid hardcore band?
Dude, everyday I think about it. If it wasn't for that band I never would have seen all the places and done all the amazing things that I did. Not to mention with people that I really enjoyed being with. No matter what the lineup, we always made it a point to have a good time and not take anything for granted because at any time it could end. After all you could be back home banging nails on a roof or working a shitty office job.

How do you think your life would have unfolded if you’d never joined the Hope Conspiracy? Where were you headed in life when you joined the band and it sort of changed everything?
I'll never forget sitting in Jonas's room at the house on Everett St. in Allston fall of 99. I had already tried out for the band and I was in. Those guys told me "this is why we moved to Boston. The band will always come first. Above jobs, girls and what ever anchor or hang up in your life". I had a job that I had just started earlier in the year and on my way to a "career" making some other asshole rich. Nevertheless, it was one of the 3 most pivotal points in my life that I can remember. I took the risk and decided to make the commitment and I will never regret the decision I made that day. I would be in a really unsatisfying place in life right now if I chose otherwise.

Being over 30 years of age now, do you think that you’ve left it too late to return to ‘normal’ society and have a ‘proper career’?
 Fuck "normal society" and "proper careers". I did it on my own and the further I got away from what is supposedly "normal and proper" the more I realized it was all one big fat lie. People go through life scared to take risks that could potentially make them happy and that’s the problem with most Americans. They walk around with a big chip on their shoulder and a ‘we are better than everyone’ attitude and it's like, "motherfucker how would you know?!. You've never even left the state!". They are products of what they see and hear on the tv and are pumped full of fear and bred to consume. It’s enough to make you puke. I can't believe I live in a country that makes some rich trust fund twat like Paris Hilton important. People actually care what she says and does, it's fucking awful. What the hell does she have in common with any one that has to earn an honest days pay? It's because all these lazy ambition-less losers would rather live vicariously through her than actually getting off their own ass and doing things to make themselves happy and more successful as a person.

Moving back quite a few years now, how did you first get into hardcore all those years ago? What was your life like when you discovered hardcore?
I got into music at a very early age thanks to my older sister. She always had the latest LPs and 8 tracks and later cassettes around and I would listen to them non-stop. From KISS, Sabbath and Alice Cooper to Styx and J. Geils. My cousin Brian was an 80s metalhead and we would sit around listening to all his records or tapes talking about Ozzy biting the heads off of bats and Iron Maiden being satanic, it was great. Of course after that came Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeath, DRI and Metallica. Then came the first time I heard the Misfits, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, Minor Threat, The Exploited etc. Once that happened I was hooked. At that time around the summer of 89 my friends and I were into skating and had friends from other towns that were going to shows in Boston to see more current hardcore and punk bands. We heard the shit was crazy and really wanted to go see this thing live and in person.

What was your first hardcore show like? What were your first few favourite hardcore bands? 
My first show was SLAPSHOT, Uppercut and a few more I can’t remember at this point. That was August of 89 at Bunrattys in Allston. It's really crazy to think about how long ago that was right now. I remember it like it was yesterday and things I did yesterday I cant remember, hilarious. I remember being scared to death that I was going to get beat up by a gang of skinheads. At that time SLAPSHOT and WRECKING CREW were huge in Boston and that was the element they brought. Dangerous, scary and threatening to all the normal boring masses outside the doors of the club that day. That to me is what hardcore was and should be and it made a lasting impression. It was truly underground and under the radar. The New York HC thing was in full swing and bands like Sick Of It All, Sheer Terror, Breakdown, Gorilla Biscuits, Agnostic Front, Burn, Killing Time, Supertouch etc etc. would be coming up to play shows almost every weekend at Bunrattys, the Rat and The Channel. Those clubs are nothing but a memory now. 

Who/what was the first person or band that made you think ‘I want to be in a hardcore band’? What was it like the first time you got up on stage in your own band?
I'd say the Cro-Mags ‘Age of Quarrel’ was the record that made me want to be in a hardcore band. To everyone at the time that was the real deal, very inspiring. To a suburban Boston kid that band was something that couldn't be topped. When we went on the road with the Cro-Mags in fall of 02 it was surreal. The band I had worshipped a decade earlier we were on tour with. 
The first time I got on stage with a band I honestly thought I was going to pass out from the adrenaline rush.

You’ve been involved in hardcore for a longtime now, what are some of the best bands that you’ve seen come and go in the time you’ve been involved in hardcore? 
Already mentioned most of them.

How do you think hardcore has changed since you first got involved in it? What’s better now and what’s worse? Do you think that some kids these days just don’t understand what hardcore is?
All you have to do is pick up a copy of AP to answer that question. I think the term hardcore has been bastardized and blurred beyond the point of recognition or at least most people recognizing its roots. Fortunately there are bands still out there that do it for all the right reasons and do recognize the roots of it all. I do know for a fact that there are kids out there that still understand and appreciate what it’s really about.

In an interview I read in a zine over here, you said that you moved to Deathwish Inc. because you felt that your old label Equal Vision isn’t the same label that they used to be. From my observations over here, it seems like some of the bigger US ‘hardcore’ labels got bigger and bigger to a point where they started to forget about their hardcore roots and instead started signing more ‘mainstream friendly’ bands because they know they’ll shift units. Like look at Victory Records, ignoring hardcore bands with history on the label like Ringworm and All Out War while they focus on Bury Your Dead or the latest emo band that’s gonna get them a few more dollars. I’m not saying that Equal Vision are as bad as Victory, but did you feel like you would’ve been ignored in favour of a more popular band if you’d stayed at Equal Vision?
The reality of the situation is for labels like those to stay successful they need to stay current and produce what is popular. A part time band that screams about hating religious fanaticism and societal instabilities isn't going to be a priority. Our time as a band that could be successful on a label like Equalvision had passed. They have a particular market and we are not the type of thing that market is hungry for. We also had no ambition to be on the road 10 months a year. In all fairness to us and them, what's the point of working together? We appreciated that they wanted to put out ‘Death Knows Your Name’, but at this point it makes no sense whatsoever. 

How is everything going at Deathwish these days? Do you think you fit in well with the other bands on the label? 
Deathwish is a small, hardworking and dedicated label. They have a diy ethic and believe in the old way of doing things. I think that our last record was put out by the right label because of that.

Some of the songs on ‘Death Know Your Name’ deal with the topic of christianity and how it is used as an excuse to create war and suffering, a topic you’ve never really covered much in the past. Did the current political climate in the US (with the war in Iraq, fundamentalist Christianity being at a seemingly all time high etc) influence you to start writing anti-christian songs?
It had a lot to do with it. Also, if you go back and look at lyrics from our demo, ‘Cold Blue’ and ‘Endnote’ you will find a lot of those sentiments. It has always been there. As long as greedy politicians are swayed by special interest groups that use religious prophecies to gain power through stealing land and wealth to control and profit off the population then I will always have something to write about. Religion itself is not the enemy it’s those that twist and contort its message to create fundamentalism and fanaticism. 

There’s also a few songs on ‘Death Knows Your Name’ that use the metaphor of pigs (and there’s even the sampled pigs in They Know Not), why did you decide to use that metaphor? 
Because pigs are what Orwell used in Animal Farm as a way to mirror the individuals in his lifetime that were responsible for social injustice and greed. Pigs consume and destroy everything in their environment a lot like humans do. 

The last 2 songs on ‘Death Knows Your Name’, are a lot different to anything the Hope Conspiracy have written before, how did those 2 songs come about? 
Not really sure it was a conscious thing. We just got together and wrote with no rules as to what our band is supposed to sound like. We knew what kind of vibe we wanted to convey on the recording and that was what we came up with. I'm glad that the band evolves with each release. How boring is it when a band keeps doing the same thing over again?

Dwid (of Integrity fame) did guest vocals on the first of those 2 songs, how did you hook that up? What do you think of all the material Dwid released under the Integrity name (Integrity 2000, Closure etc.) after they originally broke up about a decade ago?
Dwid is a friend of mine. I have been a huge Integrity fan since 91 when I heard the demo. There was something about the band that was different to everything else at the time. Calling it ordinary metal/hardcore crossover would be dismissing it as something irrelevant and ordinary. There was something in the song writing lyrically and musically that was darker and scarier than everything else at the time in my opinion and that really connected with me. I was never really a fan of ‘2000’ or ‘Closure’ but I thought ‘To Die For’ on Deathwish was great. I asked Dwid if he would be down to do some vocals on one of our songs and he was cool with it. We sent him a copy of the song and told him where we wanted the words and he sent back a great piece to work with when mixing and mastering. The song went from good to great with him being a part of it. 

What was the concept of the artwork for End Note? I can’t seem to work out what’s going on in the artwork at all…
Yeah, I think that it could have been a little better myself. A lot of the imagery was taken from the movie ‘Falling Down’ and manipulated too much and it became cold and mass produced looking. The limited hand-screened vinyl copies we made in 05 were what it should have looked like originally.

What is the song Carved Out about? Some of the lines make it seem like it’s about serving in the army (references to holes (trenches?), serving and badges) but other lines just make me think it’s an angry song about trying to remove an unwanted part of yourself. 
It was a song about corrupt law enforcement and serving time. I did a small sentence between Feb 94 to Oct 96 and I got an up close and personal look at how the system really works. That song was my way of saying fuck you to those responsible for putting me away for something I didn't do. 

You and Tim also play in another band called the Bars, why did you decide to start a more straight up hardcore punk band?
 It was a fun project that we started in the summer of 02. We wanted to do something in the vain of the Deadboys meets AC/DC meets New Wave of British Heavy Metal. When it became not fun it was put to death. 

Bars have had a new EP sitting around for a while now waiting to be released, is it ever gonna see the light of day?
Hopefully not. The songs could have been really good with a little more heart but unfortunately the heart was removed with bad decisions in the studio and lackluster performances. People that have heard it say they love it or hate it. I happen to hate it.

Lastly, I’ve gotta ask the Australian tour questions haha, what was your first Australian tour like? When can we expect to see you guys back here again?
Our first and only Australian tour was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I will never forget it. The shows were great and a lot of fun. Graham at Resist was the best. I hope that we can come back again one day before we get too old.

I think that’s all from me dude, any last words?
Thanks for your time and thanks to everyone that still cares about the band. Hopefully we will see you soon.