GODS & QUEENS // Interview

(May 2010)

Jamie Getz is something of a rarity in the hardcore scene. All the bravado and mucho posturing that the beat down scene can muster with thier empty ’hardcore for life’ sloganeering can not hold a torch to this man who has spent his entire teen and adult years in love and hate with the cause. Having played in the phenomenal Lickgoldensky and Versoma he now takes the lead in GODS & QUEENS and although he had just returned from a mammoth European Tour he managed to find some time to answer these quickfire questions.

 

 

– How’s this European tour been for you this time around? I caught you in Margate. What were the highlights and what were your impressions of Margate, even if they were somewhat brief?  

this tour has been an exercise in patience, and not attempting to murder someone, a true test of being lied to, and attempting to remain calm about it.  also, a really good way to hemorage every penny i made over the past year.  i was real excited about that.  band wise we got along great, most of the shows were decent, a few awful ones but thats bound to happen on any tour.  highlights were london for sure at the crobar and lubjiabna slovenia was great.  we also did an acoustic show in berlin, we have never attempted that ever but it turned out to be really fucking cool.

margate seemed to us to be like new jersey here in the states. asbury park to be exact.  a dead summer beach town, that at one point probably was a real destination spot, where people came for awesome summer vacations, but now is reduced to a few stragglers on the boardwalk,and some cruddy beach patrons who throw garbage everywhere and dont care about the town.  seems like it once was great, and now flounders in the winter months.  most beach towns i assume are like that.  BUT we had an awesome time at the show.  very very good to be exact.  margate was rad, and we all want to come back for sure.  we had a good time.

 

– As a hardcore band your sound is pretty unique, i can hear elements of the British shoegaze music in some of your recordings for instance. Where do you think you fit into the scene?

 fit in? ha i dont think we do.  depends.  our band sounds like washington d.c. circa 1995.  not the most popular form of music to be playing these days.  there are always gonna be people who like it and understand it but there will ALWAYS be more that cant stand it and dont want to hear it…unless their friend tells them first.  but i also understand exactly what we sound like and exactly who we are.  all in all our ethics keep us a punk band, and probably always will.  weather or not people accept that or us, thatäs not up to me.

 

– You’ve been knee deep in hardcore for many, many years. What makes you stick with DIY, I like many others get so frustrated with flaky promoters and labels etc etc… Yet it seems no matter what gets thrown at you you stick with it?

 this tour really has me questioning why i still to this on this level, and how we do things.  i am also very stubborn, which leads me to tend to want to prove people wrong.  like this tour our “booking agent” claimed he couldnt fill shows in…amazingly i just emailed people and seemed to fill in a lot of the dates.  so i will say i stick with it on this level out of spite.  thats the best answer i can give you.  also, man, i dont give a fuck.  thats the other thing.  i play in a punk band.  end of story you know?

 

– Why are Gods & Queens recordings all titled ‘Untitled’?

 because that shit isnt important to me.  i dont wanna come up with some clever song title, or some stupid one either.  i know what songs we are playing, i dont need to have them worded or anything.  although it makes putting a set list together interesting.  “play the one that goes like this…dun dun dun dun duuuuuunnnnn.  no no not that one the other one that goes like that.”  ugh.

 

– How has Robotic Empire been with you and how have they compared with labels that you have been on in the past?

 first and foremost andy and i are friends.  thats the biggest thing.  other than that another friend putting out a record for their friends band.  pretty cut adn dry i wish there was more gossip or something jucy to tell but alas…pretty boring answer isnt it?  ha.

 

– I always ask this question to anyone i interview. If you had to chose one. What is your favourite record of the 1980′s?

this is easy for me, circle jerks “group sex”.

You can read more about Gods & Geens by clicking on this link to the bands MYSPACE or even their WORDPRESS site. Finally here is a link to the pics I took the day they played my home town. PHOTOS.

BATTLE OF WOLF 359 // Interview

(Oct 2010)

Once upon a utopian rock and roll dream i lived in a somewhat punk rock house where various band members and artistic types in the area would live, work and simply hang out and party. I had many housemates through the years but one I remember fondly was Samantha. Eventually we all moved on and out of the house but I would every so often hear tales that Sam was now living in America or that she was drumming in a speed metal band or had been captured by the Russians due to her undercover work with MI5 in trying to organise a new cold war.
I eventually caught up with her thanks to facebook of all things and found out that in actual fact she was fronting a kick ass hardcore band called Battle Of Wolf 359, I sent some questions to get the low-down on her activities and would you believe she didn’t even mention any of her extra-curricular government activities. Once a spy, always a spy.

LIR: Can you tell us how you came to be the singer in Battle of wolf 359? Last time I saw you properly you were a punter at a show. How did you get from Margate scenester to this awesome screamer for an awesome band?

I guess I really have you Thanet dudes to thank for it all. Moving to Margate, which during its peak was a hotbed of punk activity, and living with you guys was a turning point in my life. Seeing so many amazing bands at a pretty young age and being involved with shows was the most exciting shit to me. Nowadays we are exposed to so many bands through the internet but back then I remember sending off envelopes for distro lists, scouring MRR and Fracture zine reviews and listening to hand-me-down records, it gave me a huge appreciation for the network that was opened up to me. Having distros commonplace at every show was pretty inspirational for my 16 year old self and really stuck with me- evident in the fact that I now run a record label and distro myself (Parade of Spectres). When I got a little older I left Kent and moved to America and met my now husband in Philadelphia. When we moved back to London we were really keen to start a heavy band together referencing old German and Canadian metallic hardcore and spent awhile looking to put a band together, eventually we came across the other BOW dudes and the rest you know.

LIR. Have you ever regretted choosing a name (which I think is brilliant by the way) based on a fictional battle from a star trek programme?

I’ve never regretted the Star Trek band name however as one of the two diehard sci-fi fans in the band i’m probably the wrong member to ask that question to! It’s actually always proved to be a great conversation starter and we’ve even had lots of people check us out/write to us in the first instance because of the Trek thing. Quite often I get accosted by nerds at shows asking what my favourite series is and whether I liked the new film which is pretty funny. Trekkies definitely aren’t as marginalised as you might think, there are a ridiculous amount of people in bands, at shows and who buy/download our music who are fellow fans who are quick to give us props.

LIR. Do you prefer the studio or the live environment?

Live, without a doubt. Playing shows as loud and heavy as possible is definitely the main reason we’re making music. Recorded we are only striving to sound like what we sound like live. Not to say that we don’t enjoying going into the studio- all of the recording sessions we’ve done for our vinyl output have been really fun and positive experiences and it’s great to hear ourselves on record but, for me anyway, it has always just been the means to an end.

LIR. What sort of feedback have you had back since releasing The Death of Affect.

As far as I know/have seen we’ve gotten pretty sweet, encouraging feedback for the LP along with positive reviews for our even more recent splits with the Resurrectionists and June Paik (both from Germany). With ‘Death of Affect’ we are all really pleased with how the record turned out and I like how complete it feels as a package (music, imagery, lyric booklet).

LIR. As I don’t have a hard copy of any of your stuff yet it’s not clear to me who writes the lyrics, is it you and if so what is the writing process for you?

I share vocal duties with Andy and we each write our own set of lyrics. We often deliberately discuss ideas we each have for songs and write from there but sometimes the songs come long after having casual discussions about a topic or current issue. It all depends and varies from one song to the next; sometimes I write lyrics for a song that has already been composed and practiced and sometimes the atmosphere or melodies of the song dictates the lyrics/topic.

LIR. What are Born into fire and Martyr OD about?

All of our songs revolve around similar themes; radical politics, anti-religion, personal struggles, modern science advancement and environmental issues. We often use science fiction/fact imagery and historical reference points as analogies and imageries and both of these songs would fall under that too. Specifically, and loosely: Born into Fire is our queer pride song about the difficulties and issues we have with having to engage with others (be it family, workmates, stupid friends) who have pretty short-sighted and ridiculous opinions on people’s sexuality and how any kind of non-conventional relationships are rendered null and void by these fucktards. Martyr OD is us using an extreme example of religious fanaticism (the Jonestown Massacre) to look at the wider issues of organised religion- the corruption of power and blind faith- that we cannot even begin to identify with.

LIR. How is the American tour going?

I originally answered these questions during the tour but then lost the paper in the mess of unsold merch, guitar leads, empty beer bottles and pretzel bags that plagued our tourvan by the end of the tour. So now I am writing retrospectively and can tell you that the tour was a complete success and was definitely maybe the best experience of my life. There is nothing more reaffirming than being on tour, night after night, meeting people that you have so much in common with, who are in the same place as you and who are often, the kindest and friendliest people you could hope to meet. Over the years you hear horror stories about the lack of ‘scene infrastructure’ and the shortcomings of American hospitality (not sharing equipment, promoters not feeding bands or providing somewhere for them to sleep etc.) but we were simultaneously surprised and overwhelmed by the warmth and generosity shown to us by almost everyone we met. We got to play with some killer bands too, most noticeably Veloz and Vaccine from the Massachusetts, Parrhesia from Chicago and Resister from North Carolina (ex-Catharsis but I didn’t get a chance to ask ‘em if the remembered the Lido!).

LIR. As a fan yourself you must be living the dream right now, what bands have you come across that have inspired you along the way.

Fuck yeah, I love going to shows and getting to play with so many amazing bands is as close to heaven as a dogmatic atheist like me is ever going to come! First and foremost we have shared a 7” and a couple of tours with our great friends from Dundee, Kaddish- nothing beats playing with them. Every tour we have done has been with really special friends of ours and we’ve always felt lucky to watch them slay night after night; Drainland in Ireland, the Resurrectionists in the UK and June Paik in the UK and the USA. We recently really connected with Veloz from Boston and I can’t wait to bring them over to play some shows in Europe next summer. There’ve been so many killer bands we’ve played with over the last few years who have really influenced us and spurred us on to write beastier riffs and travel as far wide as we can. To name a few that immediately come to mind; Graf Orlock, Ghostlimb, Merkit, Punch, Limpwrist and Dolcim (all from the US), Perth Express and Zann (Germany), Shikari (Netherlands), Victims (Sweden) as well as multitude of sick UK bands- Army of Flying Robots, Mob Rules, Grammercy Riffs, the Keep and Fall of Efrafa.

LIR. After the US tour what’s up next for you guys?

Well unfortunately for the rest of us our drummer, Simon, has just moved to Armenia til next summer cutting short any plans we might have had. I think a lot of bands would either call it a day or get someone else in to do the job but neither option has been even considered- the band started with the six of us and if it ever has a reason to end, it’ll end with the six of us. Si was living in Moscow for a year some time ago and we still managed to write and even play the odd show during that period and all us have plans and commitments here and overseas to deal with so we’re used to being a bit spread out- it just makes the time that we do have together all the better. We’ve spoke about working on a new LP as soon as we’re all back together and once we can gauge how much time we can get together we’ll book some more shows up. In the meantime Derek (guitar) and I are practising with a new Kent based eerie-mosh (!) band. We hope to play our first show in Margate next month. Where else?!

LIR. I always ask this when interviewing bands if you had to choose 1 record that you truly love of any genre that was released in the 1980’s what would it be and why?

This question just sparked quite the debate in our living room and has had me thinking hard ever for a while. I really couldn’t narrow the whole decade down to one record. I suppose if I ever absolutely had to then I’d be obvious and go for Black Flag ‘Damaged’. That said Siege’s ‘Dropdead’ recordings, Cocksparrer’s ‘Shock Troops’, Joy Division’s ‘Closer’ and all 80s Metallica have a pretty special place in my heart and I listen to all those bands on pretty heavy rotation still to this day. Also Dischord’s ‘Flex Your Head’ comp seems like a pretty good catch all answer to cover all of the classic 80s hardcore bands. Did I just cheat?

Here is a link to the bands myspace. Check them the whacha whacha hell of out!