Skateventure through Chile and Peru

A while ago I came across the story of some Kiwi blokes that went through Peru and Chile, with a bit of a difference. They were doing their travel on longboards.

It sounded like fun so I got in touch. Here is the interview I did with them. I am going to be writing a story for the print edition of I Love Chile about their adventure.

1. Was this your first long distance (ie multi-week) skate trip? What inspired you to choose the location?

Yes it was actually, my friend Troy who also came on this trip had previously done a crazy trip from the top of Thailand to Singapore and I saw the great experiences he had, meeting amazing people, dodging elephants, past snakes and I thought that would be an amazing adventure to do. That really inspired me to get involved and I had heard many great things about Chile and Peru thought it would be a great place to explore.

2. Part of the aim of the trip was to promote sustainable travel - do you think you got that message across in Peru and Chile and what can everyone do to make their trip a bit more sustainable?

Yes well somewhat, sustainability is probably not as front of mind for people in South America as it is from where I come from. In saying that we received positive support for our goals and what the trip was about. In terms of what people can do, try to incorporate activities that don't require using vehciles or burning of fossil fuels. Obviously though flights and other transport are hard to avoid, so perhaps look at ways to offset the emissions from your flights through verified carbon credits.

3. What kind of sponsorship did you need to get your trip off the ground and how did you go about getting it?

We received a bit of sponsorship for equipment which helped us a lot, and the equipment was great and held up well considering it got battered around so much! We basically have a website and facebook following and approached a couple of cool companies to see if they would support our cause.

4. The three of you are originally from Christchurch - do any of you still live there and was there any effects from the earthquake there on your trip?

Yes, we have actually all moved up to Auckland since the earthquakes. But all experienced the earthquakes in Christchurch. We didn’t see any noticeable effects Chile, but in saying that we didn’t have an appreciation of what places may have looked like before the Earthquake happened so I couldn’t really say.

5. Where is the next skateventure? Is there anywhere you would not consider skating?

That’s the next question right?! Well to be honest I haven’t looked into it yet. Guy reckons something crazy like Antarctica could be the go, but we would have to create some sort of ridiculous board or wheels to do that. Do you have any suggestions?

6. How did you get involved in longboarding in the first place? What is the scene in NZ like and are the three of you involved in any other sports?

When I was at university I learnt to longboard, as it was a great way to get around the place. I had many other friends who did the same and I guess it just became a fun hobbieof mine. In NZ longboarding seems to be growing rapidly, with groups starting to form and even some downhill competitions are starting I believe. So it’s great to see.

7. Tell us some more about the carboNZero programme and your role in that

Well we help companies in around the world to measure, reduce and offset their greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint) with credibility. My role is to help businesses communicate the great initiatives they are implementing to reduce their impact on the environment and also to help raise awareness of what we do at carboNZero. So a cool job, with a company doing great things!

8. Would you consider another skate trip in Chile?

Yes for sure, the people were great, the roads were really good and the scenery was amazing. Chile was a great place for what we were doing.

9. You had your fair share of misadventures along the way, but what were some things you encountered that you could never have planned for?

Well one of the boys got attacked and bitten by a large pack off wild dogs near Tocopilla, we had to not go off the side of the road for 15kms when we crossed the Peru/Chile boarder because off rogue landmines...But really the one thing we didn't really plan for was the crazy reponses we had from people passing us by or people we met in villages. Some people treated us like aliens, others high fived us and others just tooted their horns angrily and wondered why three crazy guys were in their town on Skateboards! We also had to survive on biscuits for a few days, as in a few planned out villages we arrived at bad times and food access wasn't good etc so that was hard, and we actually ran out of sunblock one day and ended up having to rub dirt on our arms etc to stop getting burnt haha. A few desperate times you might say...

10. What has the media coverage of your journey been like so far?

There has been some good coverage here in NZ and Australia, I guess because it is a rather unusual story! But the support has been great, and we are stoked to be able to make a few people smile!

If you want to add anything more, that would be great.

Great, I guess that overall it was a hard trip, we had some hill climbs that lasted over 25kms but the people, the scenery and adventure that we had made it all worthwhile

Also if you could put a link to our facebook page that would be great, we'll be getting more photos, videos up soon for people to see if they are interested.

www.facebook.com/skateventure

New Footbag interview: Ken Somolinos

Well, at the start of the year I introduce a series of interviews on Shred Global, a Footbag website. I planned to do one each week, putting each interview up for Footbag players and other people interested to read each weekend.

Well, the fact is that things don't always go to plan. That's just how life goes. I managed to get three done on pretty good schedule, but then lately the pace has picked up. I decided to use a bit of free time to get my series back on track.

My latest interview is going to be a multi part one, with Ken Somolinos. Well, the whole interview is done, but it was pretty long, so I'm going to split it up into multiple parts.

Here is his (dropless) routine from Worlds in Berlin.

This is one of my favourite routines that I have seen live in action. It was in the first pool at my first ever Worlds and I think Ken really surprised everybody with this one.

Ken came to Australia in 2005 or so for the campaign with Milo. I got to meet him a couple of times during that, but really I was just starting out as a serious Footbag player.

Here is the interview. One interesting response is that Ken thinks Japan is unlikely to ever hold Worlds, while South America will be the place where the Worlds goes next, the first outside Europe or North America.

Time to get to work...

New Footbag interview

I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I have begun a new project, I am planning to interview Footbag players from around the world, at least one per week. I haven't really put all that much planning into it yet, so each week I will just pick someone I'm interested to talk to in the Footbag community, and see what's happening with them and what their thoughts on the Footbag world are.

This week I chose to go somewhere between Australia and Chile, and there is really only one active player in that region, Phil Morrison from New Zealand. The "Red Rocket".

Here is a video made from a few years ago, from some of Phil's visits to Australia. It was made by Ian Pritchard, a good friend of mine. It was part of the 2009 video contest at Worlds in Berlin. Phil and I shared a dorm with some other great guys that year.

You can read the interview on Shred Global here. I am keeping to my target so far of one per week, although my real goal is to have 100 by the end of the year, which is almost 2 per week.

A new writing project

I have started a new little project, within which I hope to do 1 interview per week (at least) with Footbag players from around the world (excuse the pun...)

So I started at the top, and his is my first one- World Champion, Honza Weber

http://www.shredglobal.com/archive/sg/interview-2011-world-freestyle-footbag-champion-honza-weber/

The next writing project I plan to undertake is going to be called Streets of Santiago. The basic idea is to get some knowledge of the history behind some of the street names through Santiago- for example, who was O'Higgins, Americo Vespucio and so on and so forth.

I am still working on a few ideas behind that, but I hope it comes out well. I want it to be a serious travel blog as well, not just about Santiago, but about my own travels, and some advice for others.

My plan is to have that one ready to go by the end of next week, so hopefully that goes ahead. It is simply up to me to get it done, so there will be one way to point the finger if it doesn't happen.

One from the vault

Julian just posted up the long lost Condorcet cover of the Slowburn "classic" Take A Swing.

I decided I should put up the interview that I did with Sean, who also played in Condorcet, and now plays in Loveshy.

Most of the other guys who were in Slowburn play in I Exist, who you can scroll down the page slightly to see the interview I did with them a couple of weeks ago.

(I changed some stuff in the questions like "this year" became "last year"-sean)

1) To start with, who's in the band and what do they play
Aaron Drums, Sean and Sam guitar, Dave sings, Petey plays bass.

2) Slowburn has played with some really big name acts throughout last year (eg Terror, Mindsnare, Internal Affairs etc). Has there been a particular highlight in the Slowburn live experience?
Sean: For me our set with Miles Away at The Jamo was a favorite. I think mainly due to the atmosphere, for some reason all the lights were off so we were playing in almost darkness. Multiple circle pits and kids screaming along. I also really like playing house shows and sweating a whole lot during them.


3) When you changed the name from Top Gun to Slowburn, did this reflect a change in the original objectives of the band, to more of a serious project
Sean: The idea at the start was to play really short and fast youth crew inspired music. We had maybe 3 songs of that sort of stuff done pretty poorly. After that we branched out a bit I think while still playing hardcore. The name Top Gun was just a sort of silly name that Dave came up with as we needed a band name. We were getting sick of the whole top gun "omg like the movie?" thing so we changed it. I think we have always been a serious project, it's just that we wanted to change the name.


4) Your fan base has grown strongly in Canberra, and you have played a few shows outside Canberra... how have you been received being an "out of town band" when playing these shows
Sean:We haven't really played many shows at all out side of Canberra. Our first show in Sydney was a bit crap I remember. However the out of town show's we have played so far this year in Melbourne and Sydney have been much better. I think when your playing to people who don't know you it's kind of exciting and you just run yourself dead onstage maybe make an impression. Playing down the south coast is lots of fun to, it's pretty much an extended Canberra scene down there.

5) So you've recorded some songs for an EP...how is it sounding and what are the plans for its release?
Sean:It sounds really good to me. I really really like all of the songs on it, and it's pretty diverse. We did rough recordings of the songs before hand and I wasn't so siked on some of them, but after recording them properly they have come out sounding so big. Recording in a real studio is a new thing to us so it was kind of strange to us at first but the lady who recorded us was super at her job and put us at ease. Not sure exactly when it's going to be released but hopefully soon, it's all a matter of money and we are all really poor.



Here is the video to the song Sleepwalker.

6) Do you think the band is always improving, as this is the first serious band for most of you guys?
Sean:Well I think we have improved in bounds since we first jammed as all bands do. Me and Aaron have had a bit of experience with being in bands, but I think the way in which we operate and how things are going is a first for all of us. I definitely think that with each recording we have improved in song writing.


7) You've had a lot of opportunities this year with international supports etc, do you think if you were a band outside of Canberra you would get this opportunities at such an early stage of a band?
Sean:Probably not, if we were in say Sydney, I doubt that we would of got some of the international supports that we have. When we first started there was seriously only two or three bands that loosely fit into the hardcore category in Canberra which meant that there wasn't much choice if you wanted a local support. It's good to see that there are a few more now, it's not like there is a huge scene but it's definitely picking up.


8) Canberra has always had a serious problem with venues, why do you think the problem always continues and can you see any solution to it?
Sean;Well maybe not so much a problem with venues but all ages venues or licensed all ages venues. It is really frustrating to be under age and miss out on seeing bands, when they play an overage show that isn't attended as well as it could of been if all ages. Under age kids are what keep the scene thriving and it is vitally important for there to be an all ages venue that is hardcore friendly. I remember being so bummed when I was underage missing out on shows purely because of my age.
In Canberra we need someone with a clue and commitment to set up a medium sized allages venue. Sound Underground had so much potential for this but unfortunately the guy who ran it (while being a really nice guy) didn't have much of an idea how to operate a business. Jamison inn, while used as a venue for hardcore shows a lot in 2007, became increasingly hostile towards hardcore shows. And now the place is getting knocked down, so it's a no go anymore.

9) What are the best bands going around at the moment (international and Australian)?
Sean: Australian wise I am currently really into Pisschrist, Extortion and SJN. These bands are being just so much more hardcore that most pap out there. The emerging 'screamo' scene of bands like Eucalypt, Majorca, James Dean etc. has gotten me really siked on screamo in australia which was just about dead for sometime. Internationally, because I'm a heaps fruity dude, I have been getting heaps into Canadian indie like The Arcade Fire and Tegan and Sara.


10) Anyone to thank or anything else to add?
Thankyou Dan.

I put this interview in Issue #2 of Capital Eyes. The interview was dated, Feb 13, 2008.

BMA interview with I Exist

Here is an interview I did with I Exist, which came out in yesterday's BMA.

http://bmamag.com/articles/features/20110614-i-exist/

You can also check them out on Tumblr

http://iexistmusic.tumblr.com/

Their new album will be out very soon (possibly today actually)

My interview with Bridget

So this month I don't have too much news from the Canberra region. There was a zine fair on, but I was unable to attend. My spies tell me there was not anywhere near as many people as at the same event last year.

What I have done instead is interview my good pal Bridget (Screwdriver Guilts, Trees Die Standing), who used to live in Canberra, but is now popping up all over the world...

What first got you started on the idea of making zines?

I honestly have no idea. I always liked cut & paste..

You're living in Austria at the moment....what's the zine scene like?

So far a bit bullshit. There's one infoshop here in Vienna, at the one squat (not a real squat), with a secret knock & stuff before you can get in. I'm gonna keep digging though, I'm optimistic.

And to follow on from that, is it difficult to make zines there- are paper, staplers, glue and photocopiers widely available?

The good news for Viennese zinesters is that there's a super-friendly anarchist printing place that will only charge you material costs, so at least this part of it's totally covered. Meanwhile, due to some stupid scene infighting junk the place is being effectively boycotted by most of the people in the city who could, should & would be using the place.

What's your personal favourites of the zines you have made so far?

I'm kinda keen on ish one of Trees Die Standing (which will totes be reprinted & in our favourite smelbs store before long). For those of you (most of you) who haven't read it, it's about the time I went to the Egypt-Gaza border last June. It's a long story. I interviewed a bunch of people coming out of Gaza, as well as some of the people involved in the tunnels/smuggling trade & learnt a lot about the Bedouin struggle in the Sinai. I also found out that the going price for a Grad missile launcher in Gaza is $50,000, while in Somalia it's only $6,000.

Your zines are mainly based on your personal experiences, without the adventure would there be no zine?

Um yeah, I think so. I hope so! My first few zines (Screwdriver Guilts #1 & 2) were an amalgamation of crap, mostly nothing to do with me. I interviewed some skater in Norway about when THE GOVERNMENT OUTLAWED SKATING FOR LIKE 15 YEARS WTF, & Quan Yeomans from Regurgitator, who can I just mention, is such a dude.

Trees Die Standing #2 is about your experiences in Palestine...what would you do differently if you were to go there again?

Yeah wow! Maybe everything or nothing? I'd probably try to shoplift more in Tel Aviv, & eat (even) more falafel.

What's next on the production line?

So many. I spent some time with the No Borders group in Calais, France last year where European activists are supporting the migrant struggle for freedom of movement... literally hundreds of migrants are stuck in this pissant town in northern France at any given time, trying to smuggle themselves on to a boat to Britain. Basically it's a losing game of trying to stop the cops from beating them up too much during raids, & just to be a friendly face to these people who have gone through such incredible, relentless bullshit. Anyway, as soon as I get time I want to write an “Arabic for Activists” zine especially for Calais, to combat the language barrier (a lot of people there were from Sudan, Iraq etc) & help activists be more effective. I wanna write a “Middle East Vegan” recipe zine, even if no-one reads them – this might have something to do with this fucking Palestinian cookbook I'm editing right now (I say “fucking” because the recipes are so vague it feels more like I'm writing a cookbook than editing). And I want to sit down & write my zine from Iraq/Kurdistan, which I hope to call “All My Friends Are Mountains” because, well, it's often been said that the Kurds have no friends but the mountains... & gosh I like mountains!

What sort of music is the background to these zines?

This is ridiculous but when I was cut/pasting my last zine together it was to the soundtrack of my boyfriend reading me Sherlock Holmes aloud.

Apart from zines, you do a fair bit of other writing, how does making zines fit into your writing game as a whole?

Zines are totes the writing equivalent of um, “me time” - when I get to write whatever, however I like, with no deadlines, word limits or target audiences. Wahey!

What are the best and worst zines you have ever read?

I don't think I've ever read a BAD zine, hey. I have a pretty low threshold for ranty socialist zines or wistful-teenage-girl-growing-up-in-the-Midwest perzines unless they're really well done, but whatevs. Well, actually, I did read a zine once called “Why Nonviolence Protects the State”, but it was actually a photocopy of the un-copyrighted book of the same name, & it was (for me) complete bullshit.

I read a really rad zine once called something like “Why Restaurants Should Be Abolished” which was pretty much what it said on the box, deconstructing the power-plays that define restaurant interactions between customers & staff. Good stuff for anyone who's ever worked hospitality!

Do you think you will find yourself back in Canberra anytime?

I'm coming back to Australia at the end of the year, mostly out of a growing desire to address the political situation & do some intense introspective junk re: being a product of colonialism & how to circumvent it. And Canberra's magnetic pull can only be staved off for so long. Actually zine-wise I'm really fucking excited!!! Australia's zine scene seems to be totally exploding! Kapow!

Anything else to add or anyone to thank?

Thanks Special Agent Dale Cooper, for being you!

Something different for Sticky monthly column

As I mentioned on the last post, for this month's Sticky contribution, I've decided to do something a little bit different. I didn't go to the zine fair at the beginning of the month, so I don't have too much news to report. Instead my good friend Bridget (Screwdriver Guilts, Trees Die Standing) also famed for making excellent hot chocolate and getting arrested in Palestine, we did interviews with each other about zines.

So for all my followers...

Here's an early look at the interviews

Here's the interview questions I answered for Bridget

Daniel Boyle- Capital Eyes

You're from Bega... did you get in to making zines there, or when you pulled up in the teaming metropolis of Canberra? How did it all start?

I didn't really know about zines when I lived in Bega. I used to however, when I was still fairly young, do a lot of the things you will find in zines. I would fill exercise books with my top 50 or 100 songs, and write my own album reviews and things like that. So these were really handwritten 1/1 zines when you think about it...

I lived in Sydney for a while and I picked up a few zines, I always picked up anything that was free or really cheap in some of the different music shops, but once I was in Canberra I helped do a zine with a couple of my friends, it was called Can I Scream (the name was from the Refused song New Noise, and it got a lot of criticism in the reviews)....we made it for free, we did three issues, I think we actually printed more than 500 of the first one. When we were doing that I was thinking, I would like to do my own zine, but it was a couple of years before I actually went and did that.

Your zines feature a lot of band interviews. How influential would you say zines are in Australian punk & hardcore these days (promoting, finding new bands, etc)?

Within Australia, particularly in the punk and hardcore scene, or all scenes I guess, people are getting their information online. It's instant and you can listen to the music straight away. For information about what's on immediately, I guess the street presses can be ok, although not everything is in there. The whole zine thing is a bit more fun, I guess.

Some people may read about a band and get into them from there, particularly this “bigger” zines like Pee Zine, which has been going for ages and is up to issue number 40 something, or Unbelievably Bad, though that doesn't seem to come out much anymore, those sort of zines have a good chance of giving you some ideas about new bands, whereas a lot of the smaller zines, I guess it's just a look at some punk rock dudes life with a few interviews of bands they like, which you may want to check out.

There are not that many punk/hardcore zines around, maybe one or two in each city, but I always love to pick up any zines when they're at shows.

Before I left Canberra you were the only other zine person I knew there. Now, it seems like the nation's (spew) capital has exploded in ZINE FEVER! Is this correct? How's the zinescape (yeah, zinescape) looking these days?

I'm not sure if these people were around already, or that it's just getting more organised. There seems to be a lot more zine fairs, there's one coming up at Gorman House next week, and zines were even featured in the National Gallery of Australia, now isn't that Art.

I think a lot of these people were already around previously, but basically you just had to know them if you wanted to get a zine, whereas there are more outlets to have your zines, Smiths Bookshop is selling a whole lot of zines now these days.

You're writing a zine blog now, right? How's it going? Have you ever given a zine a bad review?

I have a blog which I kind of use as a zine blog, I mainly use it to put up the old interviews from previous zines, or I put some of my other writing in there, mainly travel stories or comments about the Canberra Raiders season (currently going very badly) in there. I have been doing some zine reviews. I mainly write about ones that I like from these piles of zines sitting in my loungeroom so they are mainly good reviews, but not all zines are great!

Have you legally deposited your zines at the National Library (that is, donating one copy of each to the National Library for posterity)? My friend who works at the National Library says legally depositing your zines is not only important (for archiving media history etc) but COOL!

I think there are a couple of mine in the collection at the Library. Some of the ladies got a few of my issues at the last zine fair. I have been meaning to put a copy of the rest in there, but I'm trying to track down copies of all the previous issues somewhere around my house.

You went to Papua New Guinea, whoa! My dad, who btw is a badass, told me a story one time from when he was in PNG (he is a geologist/rock star. geddit? Haw!) & got robbed for everything he had on his back – including his undies - & had to walk back to Port Moresby naked.* Did anything like this happen to you?

I remember reading a story about your Dad in one of your zines, maybe it was a letter from him from China and it was mainly about pandas, he sounds like a good guy. We didn't have anything bad happen to us, we went on a surf trip which left out from Kavieng, which is in the north of PNG. Port Moresby airport seemed like a very sketchy place, but on the advice of the people who took us on the trip, we took a taxi to some rich guy hotel and ate lunch while we were waiting for the next plane. Not very “travel guru”, but better than being robbed. The trip itself was awesome, all the people we met in the islands were so friendly to us. For those playing at home I wrote about this trip in Issue #7 of Capital Eyes.

You're moving to Chile! Have you sussed out the zinescape there?

I'm looking forward to going to Chile. I don't really know too much about the Chilean zinescape actually. There is a girl that gives updates on the Sticky newsletter so I will have to get in touch with her before I go. I just got married this year and my wife is from Chile, so we will head over there for around two years. I guess I will make some zines about my experiences of being a gringo over there.

When the uninitiated ask you “what's a zine?”, what do you usually say?

I usually tell them it's a home made magazine, made by cutting and pasting and photocopied at your work or some other place cheap. Then they look at me and wonder why somebody would do such a thing.

I picked up this A4 folded thing at a gig the other night labelled “FANZINE” & it turned out to be some promotional crap about some crap sponsored by the EU. I felt a tinge of the same outrage that an African-American rapper maybe feels when their subculture is used to hawk mass-produced sweatshop corporate sportswear. What do you think? Do you think it's kinda cool that zines are considered so significant a medium as for their POWER to be harnessed by Big Money, or is it a contrived insult to our collective intelligence?

An interesting question really. Generally if a “zine” is made by some “big, powerful organisation”, it loses the touch of the zine world. It's all formally presented, the staples are nicely in place, the paper is suspiciously high quality. However, zines could be used as a massive promotional tool in any situation, and I guess it's up to the reader to interpret it as they will. In countries where the state runs all the TV, newspapers etc, making a home made “zine”, though it may not be called that, is a way of getting your message to people.

Ruiner

I did this interview ages ago, when Ruiner played in Canberra on their tour last year. Soon after the tour they announced they would break up. The interview also appeared in Capital Eyes issue #9.

I'm talking to Rob from Ruiner

You guys just played in Canberra at Bar 32, how'd it go?

It was good, wish it could have been a house, but you know, it's good not having to take the night off.

Have you always had this infatuation with George Michael?

No, I just the video on the screen while we were playing, I was entranced!

Ruiner toured Australia at the end of 2008. How did this tour compare to that one?

Pretty similar so far. The booking and managerial side of things was very different though. A friend of ours over here did all the bookings and another friend helped us with the paperwork side of things. There's no hostels this time around, no guaranteed accomodation.

Where are you guys staying tonight?

Somebody's friends house...I believe.

The band has put out an album pretty recently...how do you feel it compares to the other releases to you personally?

For me personally, I like it a lot better. I like it better than the last record. I don't know if I want to use the words “most honest”, but I guess you could say that about some of the songs. They reflect what I was feeling, what I was going through at the time.

A lot of the songs seem to have a lot of yourself put into them

I'm extremely conceited, yes, you got me. I have no other way to write a song. All the songs are from my experience. Writing something topical, I don't really like it, it's more likely to be scrapped. I may touch on politics but it's not something I actually write about. Apart from religion, there's no other topic I really like to pick at.

What's your political mindset?

I'd be pretty liberal. When it comes to gay rights, back home it's a big deal. Things like gay rights, it's incredible there's even conversation that it should be illegal. I guess I get a little iffy on things related to capital punishment. I see certain crimes in certain ways. Most of my family are from a police background. I guess some people might say that some of my views in regards to areas of the law are not so liberal.

What does your police family think of you being in a hardcore band?

My father is extremely liberal. As a matter of fact, some might say I'm more conservative than him. Everyone in the family has been very supportive of what I do most of the time. My Dad gives me shit, cost I'm always broke. I come home from tour, have to go to his house and find some way to try and get out of debt.

How does Ruiner fund their tours

We book all our own tours. Pretty much, when you're in Ruiner, the band will cover you to get there, then you're on your own from there.

When you come somewhere as far as Australia, how do you fund something like that?

The band will pay for it. We're pretty good with money as a band. As individuals, not so much. As the entity “Ruiner” we are good with money, we know what we're after. We can pull something together to go somewhere.

What's been the highlight of the tour so far?

We just hung out in Melbourne for a couple of days. We barbequed, I play basketball, we just hung out. When you've been on tour for a while, it's good to have days like that sometimes. On this tour so far I had my ipod stolen, I had food poisoning for two days straight. Asia just whooped my ass.

Where in Asia did you go?

We went right through South East Asia. Shows were amazing, but every day was getting on planes, off planes, up and down, all around.

Would you recommend other bands go to Asia?

Yeah, I would say if you're a band wanting to see what you're made of, go to South East Asia. See what you can deal with as a band. The shows are amazing, but it's the rest of the things you're dealing with. We've done a lot of touring, that was definitely one of the more strenuous tours we've ever done, and that's nothing against the people putting on the shows. It's just the travel really, getting on a plane every day, waking up at 3am to get on a plane at 6.

What happens once you finish in Australia?

We fly back to California, pick our van there, we've got a couple of weeks in North America. We zig zag in between the US and Canada. Then we go home for a month or two, then off to Europe with Carpathian, from here. Well, you know, from Australia. After that, who knows, we'll figure it out.

Any plans for a new album or anything like that?

No, not at the moment. After the Europe tour, we have no plans at all.

When is the Europe tour?

It'll be in July and August. The last show is on my birthday actually. It should be a good time, there's a whole heap of other bands in Europe around that time as well. I think the last show is in Berlin.

I saw Propaghandi in Berlin last year, that was pretty sweet

We got to play with Propaghandi last year, it was amazing. Probably one of the highlights of my life.

What's on high rotation in the van at the moment?

I don't know really, everyone just puts on their ipod, but I haven't got one, it got stolen. So I've just been sleeping most of the time. I have no idea.

What are you expecting from the rest of the tour?

If it keeps going the way it has been so far, it should be great. I'm not really expecting anything bad at all.

I guess the key question for the evening is...what song will you sing at karaoke?

My parents are actually karaoke Djs, they run the show at the karaoke. I've been around the karaoke world since I was about 13, I know all about it.

What's your karaoke special?

When I was young...I've never said this in an interview before, but I guess, I've never been asked about karaoke...I used to sing “I Would Do Anything For Love” by Meatloaf, with my mother. I love Meatloaf, I love that band, I love that man.

What's your favourite band of all time?

Nine Inch Nails...that's where “Ruiner” comes from. Nine Inch Nails are my all time favourites, they've stuck with me the longest. In more recent years, maybe Lawrence Arms would be my go to band.

Do you have anything to add or anyone to thank?

No.

Yoko Oh No

Yoko Oh No, Canberra's leading/only punk band.

I did an interview with a couple of the guys a fair while ago. There was a show on at Bar 32 and midway through the show we went and did the interview. I'm not really so sure why it took so long to get this one done.

Yoko Oh No

Yoko Oh No are a punk band from Canberra. One of the only punk bands in Canberra at the moment come to think of it.

What's happening in Yoko Oh No at the moment?

We've almost written an album. Danny, our bass player was away for a while...we got Alex to fill in, he's in I Exist, yeah I EXIST. Danny's back now, so he's back in the band.

What's the plan for the album? Any label interest?

We might be doing a split 7 inch actually, with four other bands. The Phantom Shitters.

Is that really a band name?

Yeah, that's there name. Los Croutons are another one. Yeah...I've never heard of any of these bands.

What are your thoughts on the punk scene in Canberra?

It sucks. We pretty much are the punk scene at the moment. Outcome Unknown will be over soon, not sure if we're meant to tell people that. I'm a bit disappointed. So it just us, we're it. As far as I know.

You guys didn't get to support Propaghandi when they came here. Were you cut?

Well, there's a story behind that. I knew Outcome Unknown were meant to be playing, but they were breaking up. So I thought it would be worth asking the guy that used to run the shows, that guy Luke. So I asked him, turns out he hates me. He was really drunk and just abused me for five minutes or something.

Are you happy with your year? Has it been a good year?

Yeah, it's been a pretty good year actually. We played with The Porkers and Los Caps, that was this year I think. We played at The Annandale, it was packed. Not when we played, but later on. We played a good show the other day, The Real Deal, a ska band from overseas. We've played in Melbourne a couple of times. The first time we played with Party Vibes and Anchors, the second time it was with Party Vibes again and another band, Yeah Right. We played in Wollongong with Lungs, that was awesome. They're great.

Any record labels interested in your works?

Yeah, Sony are coming with a deal to protect us from everybody. Actually, no. Nobody cares.

What do you think of punk in Australia?

It's good. Frenzal Rhomb will probably break up soon. Unpaid Debt are going to play a reunion. Lungs, after Frenzal are probably my favourite Australian punk band at the moment. Local Resident Failure are pretty good, and can't forget Anchors. I'll get in trouble if I don't mention them. We played with them the other day. Everyone reading this should buy it. The one person reading it, probably Rob. Thanks for reading Rob.

If you guys could play with any particular band, who would it be. Pretty sure I know the answer already...

Propaghandi. Fuck you Luke Myers.

I don't think he'll read this but would you say to him?

I just said it. Forget you buddy.

What's the plan for Yoko Oh No next year?

We'll record February-ish. Then we'll do an East Coast Tour later in the year after the album. Sample the kebabs throughout Australia.

Los Capitanes are pretty punk, they're pretty good. I'm backtracking, I'd just like to put it out there. There's a couple of bands in Queanbeyan that are playing punk.

What's the best band in Canberra....one band

Red Menace were pretty good....I guess for me Los Capitanes. Four Dead were good before Morgan join.

Do you guys have anything else to announce?

If you're in an up and coming punk band, we'd support you. We are the real punks. If you put on the show, do all the work, we'll play. Up the police, fuck the punks.

Elysian

I just made Issue #11 of Capital Eyes, it features a couple of interviews I did with some friends of mine. It also is in a new style, I've halved the size for something a bit different.

Late last year Elysian played a show with Ignite The Ibex, who I interviewed a couple of weeks earlier for BMA. Nathan and Gabe are the brother guitarists of Elysian, and we have been friends for a long time now, probably about 15 years.

I caught up with them for an interview after the show

So you guys are finally together...how does feel to be in a band together?

G: Wow, we're getting into the heavy stuff straight away!

N: It's good, we've always jammed together, written stuff, but we've just been living in different places so never got the chance to do something together.

G: It was idea to get him in the band. I told him, you've got to be in this band. He said, I can't be in the band, I can't be in the band, so I told him he was in the band and he was in the band.

N: So then we trekked down to Melbourne and we started drafting people for the band.

G: We can yell and scream at each other, punch on. We're the two most hot headed people in the band, got the Hutchinson flare, we can scream at each other, but the next day, we can wake up, get back into it, it doesn't matter.

Did you have to move to Melbourne to get the band started?

G: Definitely. When I was first starting to think about it, it was between Brisbane or Melbourne. We thought Melbourne just had a much wider selection of venues.

N: Living in Melbourne you can play a range of shows at different places without overdoing it. A lot of bands overplay the same places over and over again. In Melbourne it seems you can play regularly without playing at the same place all the time.

That's not how it works in Canberra...

G: Apart from the Melbourne shows, Fogs from Assidian, he hooks us up with some shows around the place

You guys are playing a lot of shows on this Harbingers of Storm tour. What's a Harbinger?

G: It's a bringer.

N: I think it came around, Alice Through The Windshield Glass, every time they tour, it pisses down rain. Funnily enough, when this tour got announced, the floods started. We're playing in Wagga tomorrow. Hopefully we can get in there, the venue we're playing at actually got flooded.

How would you describe your sound?

G: A simple term to describe it would be melodic death metal. We draw a lot from progressive rock influences, we try and focus our songs around heavy vibes and mood, rather than playing fast and tech. I wouldn't call us a typical progressive band, with millions of different time signatures, but the song structures they way the songs go, some of them, they're a real journey.

What are the main places you play in Melbourne?

The Espy, The Arthouse, The Tote, these random youth centres in the burbs, weird clubs. Anywhere we can. There's still plenty more places to play.

Have you guys had any international supports yet?

N: No we haven't done any yet.

G: Yes we have (laughing). We played with this band called Death Vomit, from Indonesia. That was a disaster. It just wasn't our show. People were looking at us, where's the blastbeats, play faster. We travelled to Sydney for it, there were about ten people there, and all these grind heads, old death metal guys, they weren't into us at all.

How'd you like the show tonight?

Yeah it was good, awesome. Everytime we come to Canberra we get a great reception. I think Canberra is really starved for some new bands.

Do you think people are still holding on to the Shigella legacy?

N: No, I don't think people remember my old band at all. I'm sure the people watching had no idea about what my old band was about. It was just like Cannibal Corpse Junior, and no one cares really.

G: Shigella were cool, they were cool at the time. That was before the resurgence of death metal hadn't happened yet. This whole deathcore thing wasn't even around yet. They were doing blasts and things and this was impressive to people. If you look at it now, compared to some of the bands going around, it seems pretty simple.

N: We were sweep picking and things, when nu metal was still the big thing.

You guys had a big turnout at Metal for The Brain in 2006

We had a bit of a buzz going, there were plenty of people watching there.

I think I was at the first Shigella show, with two singers.

G: Yeah, me too.

N: Oh man, that was horrible, we were just making it up as we went along. I pretty much learnt metal guitar, because I had joined a metal band.

Have you guys ever played in a band together before?

G: We played in a covers band in high school, well it was Nathan's band, Seraphim but I filled in on bass a few times.

I was at the first show of that band to... I reckon that was one of my early favourite bands. I heard you on the community radio once..playing All Along The Watchtower I think.

N: We used to win all these battle of the bands, because the old blokes loved us. We would playing Hendrix, or Led Zeppelin, they were into it.

How does being from Bega affect your music?

N: I reckon it does, definitely. You're not really influenced...you've got no idea what anyone else is listening to, no idea what the trends are. Especially with metal, you just look in a magazine. I used to just order things from catalogues that sounded cool. That's how I got into stuff like At The Gates, In Flames, that kind of thing. You're just into what you're into. When you're in a small country town, it's probably just you and two other guys, you don't really care if that's the in thing.

G: You are isolated, that's for sure. Especially for us growing up, there was no myspace, no youtube, there was no connection. That's what I noticed when I first went to Brisbane. There were a whole lot of bands, they just wanted to sound like Strapping Young Lad. They all looked the same, they all had the same vibe. When you go to cities, you're so impressionable, in a country town, you're brain isn't as bombarded. You search harder for things. I remember sitting by the radio ready to tape songs, watching late night Rage if there was going to be a new Deftones song.

Do you still have your Hanson tape?

G: laughs

N: No, I don't have the Hanson tape. I gave it to Vivien Irving, for free.

G: laughs more.

Do either of you have any of your tapes left from your original collections? I've been listening to a lot of silverchair on tape lately.

N: I think I've still got a Foo Fighters tape. Nirvana- Nevermind, a bunch of mixtapes, or copied tapes from my mates.

What do you hope to do...what's the goal with the band?

We want to go as far as we can. In the forseeable future we just want to play as much as we can in Australia. Just bombard places. We want to play so much that people have no choice but to take notice of us. Hopefully the right people do...we definitely want to play somewhere overseas within a year or two. Fogs has been talking about a tour to Japan. Just want to drop another plug there for Fogs, he's our booking agent/manager with Assidian.

What do you think of the Australian metal scene at the moment?

N: I reckon it's bigger than ever. Look at the stuff that's popular at the moment. It's stuff with distorted guitars and screaming music, whether it be death metal, deathcore, hardcore, it's all metal. The hardcore kids might not agree...Metal's the biggest it's been since the 80s.

G: Metal's big at the moment, but I really question the uniqueness sometimes. That's why I really like Ignite The Ibex, it draws heavily from Meshuggah, but it's different. No one else is playing that style in Australia.

N: When I go out, it's often just another band that looks and sounds like Parkway Drive. A lot of them are just young kids though, and in the end, they're playing metal.

G: We complained for so long that there wasn't enough metal, now it's a big deal and people complain that there's too many copy cat bands. A lot of the time I'm disappointed when I see bands. Some that I really dig are Belakor and Ignite The Ibex. Apart from that there's not that much I'm impressed with at the moment.

What do you expect this tour to bring you? What's the Harbinger bringing?

N: Hopefully just a couple more gigs where people hear us and enjoy it. If we can just get that connection where people enjoy it, that's enough for me.

G: You can tell when people are genuinely digging it.

Do you have anything else to add?

G: I'm getting sued. A motorcycle t-boned me in Lismore three years ago. It wasn't my fault either, but I didn't have the money, the time or the know how, so they won the case. Our band also really enjoys pulling faces on stage.

Why do you have a mohawk when everyone else in the band has the Scandinavian Metal Look?

N: It's because he hasn't got the perseverance and patience to grow his hair long.

G: Well that explains the short hair, but this particular mohawk...

Was it because your mum was coming tonight?

N: We didn't know Mum and Dad were coming tonight actually.

G: This particular mohawk, I watched an interview with Phil from Pantera, he had a mohawk. You could argue he's just as metal as any of those other guys. When people say that's not a very metal haircut I'll tell them Phil from Pantera thinks it's alright.

N: He's pretty much the most metal guy ever actually.

N: My hair is pretty much what Phil's hair used to be. If I didn't have this hair, I'd have no idea what to do on stage.

I mentioned in my last post that I have been working on a project for my Dad's 50th birthday.

I have received some great stories about the inner city Sydney punk rock scene in the late 1970s, mainly the bands which formed after the demise of the mighty Radio Birdman. Some of these will be appearing in my next issue.

One of the main bands talked about was The Hitmen.

I was looking for some pictures and came across this interview, done in the mid 90s, with their lead singer Jonny Kannis.

I also did an interview with Jerkstore today. It came about in a bit of a strange way actually. I was down at Lyneham shops playing Footbag, it's a good place for me to play because it's near my house and sometimes people get interested and wonder what I'm doing.

So anyway, Julian came by and I asked what he was up to. He said they were having a band meeting. I suggested that was not punk. Later Pete K argued that maybe they are not a punk band, so it doesn't matter.

We talked about tapes, as Jerkstore are doing a tape release in the UK. I think tapes are making a comeback in a pretty strong way. The nostalgia value seems to really be getting the tape thing happening.

It was a pretty weird interview actually, but I think I will be able to get something out of it. We did talk for 25 minutes, but a lot of that was not quality interviewing.

The Capital Eyes organisation is now renowned for its quality in previous publications though...standards, etc. It's DIY, it doesn't matter.

I was going to do the new issue tonight, but I think I will wait and put a bit more work into the layout of the zine.

It's going to have interviews with Ruiner, To The North, Jerkstore and that 70's punk rock piece.

I begin my first assignment for BMA tomorrow, with an interview with Shihad.

Earthlings

This one's a bit of an old one, from Issue Five. I interviewed Earthlings and later Ghost Town in the Labor Club after they played a house show in a kitchen. I didn't actually go to the show though. Dylan Moran was playing a stand up show in town that night.

Here is a video by JHat of a more recent house show they played, back in April.

The tape starts with everybody laughing because I have revealed that the thing was not even recording. I was feeling pretty stupid.

Ok, go again…

What’s your name and what do you do

Will: I’m Will and I play bass. Drew: I’m Drew…that guy…

Will: (you sing)

Drew: Oh yeah, I try to sing but I shit myself every time.

Ben: Ben/Drums; Gary: Gary/Guitar

So you guys are all from Port Macquarie…what’s the best break in Port?

W: That’s pretty tough….Backwash.

D: Fuck off! LHB or BUST!

B: LHB

G: I don’t surf.

B: He’s from Mount Druitt, so that’s ok.

Dan: Where are you from?

G: I’m originally from Mt Druitt

B: He’s a KOOK!!! He was going to go out at Backwash but he got his salad tossed. He gave up bodyboarding cos we made fun of the way he carried his flippers

G: It’s true.

So…who still lives in Port Macquarie

W: Just me.

Where does everybody else live?

(Everyone laughs)

D: I live in Byron Bay…with my parents (laughter)

B: I live in Newcastle

G: I live in Newtown, with my girlfriend (wolf whistles)

You guys all live in totally different places…How is having a band going being so far away from each other?

B: Well, we don’t practice…at all

W: But we don’t get sick of each other because we don’t see each other so often.

B: I think I would prefer if we got to practice more often, but as we said before because we live so far apart we don’t have to deal with each other all the time, so we’re not going to get over it so quick.

So you’re more of a “professional” musician, would you say?

B: Whatever…(Everybody else laughs)

They talk about the fact that they lived together for almost a year and started to get pretty sick of each other. It rambles on a bit, so I’ll just skip that part

How’s the tour going?

W: Pretty good…first time we’ve done something like this, it’s great fun.

D: When we first started the band we never really thought anything would happen but now we’ve got a 7 inch coming out and we’ve been away for the last week and a bit

G: Tour’s going good, we’ve had decent responses pretty much everywhere except for Port. Port went to shit once we all left.

How about the show tonight?

The show tonight was awesome. Best vibe. It was just in the tiniest little kitchen. In some girls (Amy) kitchen. It was packed, it was fun and I Exist rule. Slowburn played Vocal Test…easily the best show of the tour.

Do you have anything more to add?

We should have a seven inch coming out at the end of the year. On Darken records. They do Conation, so they’re awesome. We need to write a few more songs and then we will record. Maybe we will be doing something on Craigos from The Seduction’s label later in the year.

And listen to Ghost Town.

Dangers

Here's an interview I did with Al from Dangers last week after their show with Graf Orlock at Bar 32. We did it outside in the van where it was quiet, it was however really cold. I didn't really know much about Dangers before the show, but I really enjoyed.

So we've got Al here, he's from Dangers. How are you handling the cold?

Well (laughs)....not very well. People come to California in the winter time, they're like “what the hell, it's cold here.” I say “yeah, we have seasons too”. I knew it would be cold, but not this cold. Especially because you guys do celsius, I had a day where I was looking at the numbers, I thought, twelve, I could do that, it's probably 25, 30F. Everyone else dressed a lot more appropriately than me tonight. All I have is this sweatshirt. I think tomorrow I might go buy something warmer.

You're touring with Graf Orlock, have you toured with them before?

Yeah, we're all really good friends. We share...Graf Orlock's guitarist is our guitarist as well. That wasn't always the case though. A couple of years ago Dangers toured with Graf Orlock, we got to being friends with Justin, he eventually joined our band. Any touring we do is usually with Graf, or his other band Ghostlimb. He's a very busy man. Some people thought they would be on this tour too, but they're doing a trip to Canada later this year instead. Touring with Graf is a lot of fun, as well all know each other so well. We've lived in each other's houses, it's almost like it's not just another band that we're travelling with. It's like, this is what we do, let's take it to Australia.

How are you liking Australia so far?

There's two aspects to it, there's the country, then the shows. The country itself, I'm actually really surprised at, this may be because we're here in winter. There's probably a different vibe than in summer, but it seems as if everyone is really relaxed. The phrase we really hear a lot is “no worries”. Makes you wonder if these guys worry about anything. We got a speeding ticket the other day, Justin said “oh, I'm so sorry”. He said no worries. If there's no worries, there should be no ticket then! Let's go!

The people have been really interesting. It's been very refreshing. The people are a lot more knowledgeable about the world, kinda like Europe, where people know what's going on in other countries, as opposed to where we're from, where they don't give a fuck.

Show wise, it's interesting. People will stand there as if they don't give a fuck, arms crossed, a slight clap after each song, then they'll buy a load of merch and say how great we were. At first, I was offended...well, not offended, but wondering to they like us? They have their own way of doing things though. It's refreshing for me though. Having less people, you know, handing out the microphone to them, that kind of standard hardcore bullshit, it gives me a chance to be more introspective about the lyrics. Think about what I'm saying as we're playing it. I think our performances have been somewhat better than at home, for that reason.

How about the show tonight?

Tonight...in Canberra, it's interesting, we don't ever play bars, or 18+ shows back at home. We only play, basements, halls, community centres, that kind of thing. It would be good if we could be like Fugazi, say we'll only do all ages shows, $5 entry across the world, but we're not as good a band as Fugazi. Dealing with some of these places, we played another club place in Sydney, it was called Blink or something, that was a pretty weird experience for us. What's really cool about it, no matter what the shell, the shows will still be...affecting I guess is the best word for it. Kids will come up to us, tell us they've never heard us before, they'll be interested in some of the ideas that we have. That's a good as I could expect really. The same thing happened tonight, I didn't really expect that many people at the show, Tuesday night, we're from ten thousand miles away. Humbling, I think that's the best word to describe it.

I'll admit I'm one who didn't know much about the band before tonight. Tell us a bit about your records.

We've got two LPs now. One is called Anger, it came out in about 2006 or 7. Will still play a couple of songs of that, the kids seem to respond a bit more to those songs then the ones from our new album. The new one is called “Messy, Isn't It”. That name comes from an author, Richard Brautigan who was living in California in the sixties and seventies. He had written a lot books, he was the end of the beat movement. He was a depressive man, he went back to his house and shot himself, nobody cared about him, so he wasn't found for two months. The police eventually went to see what happened to this guy nobody had heard about for two months, it was a shotgun to the head. The note next to it said “Messy, isn't it”. We thought, as a band the ideas in this record, it's quite long, there's eighteen songs, but it's more of a whole movement. It's not like The Wall or anything, some epic Pink Floyd piece, it's about questioning each day what the purpose of being here is. The sun will blow up some day and we won't exist, what makes today important. A lot of familial stuff is on the record, with the themes. What my mum had to go through being a single mother, having to have a career just to feed us. You wonder, would it have been better had she not had kids. It's about trying to understand your place in the world. We're really proud of it.

Are you guys from San Francisco?

Partly, both bands are kind of a strange mix of people. Most of us are based in the Los Angeles area, but in saying that, the drummer lives two hours from me, I live at the beach, Justin our guitarist lives an hour away from me and our bass player lives in San Francisco, which is six hours drive away. Practice is...occasional, but intense. We set aside times for doing band stuff.

Do you have a central location to meet?

We meet in LA, Vitriol Records , our guitarist runs that. We have a garage space, half is filled with records we send out, the other half has been converted into a 7x7 soundproof room. We hash out everything, each band has their own time for doing things. So we're spread out all through California, but centralised in Los Angeles.

Have you guys toured Europe before?

We haven't done Europe yet. We're planning on heading there in the Spring for us, so about six months down the track. We'll do an East Coast US tour, then to Canada, then over to Europe.

Who put this tour together?

The first half was done by a booking agency, Strike Hard. We've never worked with a booking agency before, so that's a new experience for us. The main reason we came to Australia, we got a whole bunch of emails from people here for the past year and a half or so, they were really passionate about it, we've met some of these people over here, and they're all really happy that we came over, but really, we had no idea where to start.

This guy Daniel from Strike Hard, he kept emailing us, telling he'd love to help us out. We were hesitant to do it, we've never worked with a booking agency before. We kept talking to him, told him the important things we wanted. A majority of all ages shows, working on break even stuff, we don't want to worry about big fancy clubs or that kind of thing. He was pretty receptive to that. The best thing about it is, they didn't ask for any money either, it's just like a mutual helping each other out kind of thing. From here on, the rest of the tour is booked by the guys in Robotosaurus. Their guitarist actually put out our record on CD here. They came over to the US last year, it's going to be awesome to play with them.

You've played some pretty regional places on this tour, Lismore, Orange, tell us a bit about them.

We didn't end up getting to play the Lismore show, the show went on, but we couldn't make it there. The Gold Coast, I know there's shows there, but that one had a bit of a different feel to it. We played in Maclean as well, that was pretty similar to Orange. These shows in the middle of nowhere, we think it's similar to back home. Shows on either coast, they're always pretty good. In between though, there's two thousand miles in between....what's going to happen in Boise, Idaho or Little Rock, Arkansas.

The thing about the show last night, no one had ever heard of us, but they were happy, they told us we were the first touring band that had played in Orange. It was at a guy's house, there were twenty people there. Some of them didn't even like loud music, they were just young kids who didn't have anything else to do. With those shows, there's no posturing, no being “part of the scene”. It's just a bunch of friends that are there. I was joking about it before we played today, but I did about four stagedives of a tiny couch into no one, kids were going crazy. One kid had a seizure during Graf Orlock's set. He has epilepsy as well, but he was going so crazy that he had a seizure. It was a scary thing, but at the same time, you think in a town like Orange, this music can drive a kid to literally lose his mind. The shows are memorable for different reasons. Here, you want to break down the barrier between the band and the crowd, we're just people, let's share some ideas. At a show like that, it's like, your life sucks, every day, here's an oasis for you. Let's all go crazy.

It's a different breed of people in those kind of places. We're all vegetarian, they're all like...what's that. They're not idiots though, they're just joking around. We played with a band called Vegan Hate Violence, we were wondering if they were going to beat us up or what. After the show, their mum cooked us a vegan feast. That wouldn't happen in America.

What sort of places do you play in America? Mainly California?

All the west coast. I would say our best shows are in Washington, up the coast. There's Seattle up there, and this little town called Bremerton. There's a place there called The Tiki House, it's all these 16, 17, 18 year old kids living in the house with no parents. We play in the garage there, around seventy people will show up. There used to be this band there called Ape Escape. Instead of a microphone, they would have a banana, and kids would take bites out of the banana. We have some good shows in San Francisco. In LA we mainly book our own shows, some in halls, some in this run down business called Hyde Park Half. Anywhere really small, when you play there, it makes your band feel huge. Those our favourites.

Where will you stay tonight?

With the bass player...from 4 Dead. Morgan. Hopefully we stay with him. Hopefully it's warm.

Anything left to add?

Yeah, we always like to say this at the end of our interviews, people ask us about what bands are our influences, that kind of thing. We usually skip them. Music is so ubiquitous these days, it's out there on the internet, you can find it easily. For us, the big thing is reading more books. I'm currently reading Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. For our band we try to pull a lot from books. It's more fulfilling than just a song. It's something that can stick with you for ever and ever, in a different way to music.

Do any of you do any writing of your own?

We all do some our own writing. I'm doing a book right now, fiction, short stories. Hopefully that will be finished soon.

Thank you very much for the interview.

Thank you.