1 - When did DI first start and what were some of the influences and ideas you
had in the beginning, have they changed much?DI started way back in 1984, at the time we were very much entrenched in the whole Anarcho-punk scene of Crass, Conflict, Flux of Pink Indians etc. In the beginning the politics were certainly the main driving force behind the band. Pretty soon as we learnt to play properly we were totally inspired by the heavier side of that movement, primarily Anti-sect and Amebix who we used to share a lot of gigs with. Funnily enough when we first formed we were all straight-edge vegans, but thankfully we sold our souls to Satan and became a bunch of shambolic drunken wretches.
2 - Back in the day you ripped it up with carcass, boltthrower and napalm death.
when these guys got their taste of rock n' roll conformity and disbanded
from the diy ethic did you remain in touch with them?To be honest although we used to play a lot of gigs alongside those bands we never felt any great affinity with them, especially Bolt Thrower and Carcass, they were always really just metal bands, I didn't really know anyone in those bands personally. Obviously I've kept in contact with the Napalm boys though doing artwork for them, although everyone who was in the band when we used to gig with em' has long since departed.
3 - Judging by your lyrics it sounds like you sing about political topics and
actions. were any of you involved with anarchist groups, direct action
posses, A.L.F., or volunteer groups , or are you now?During the first few years all the members of the band were involved in direct action to some degree, lot's of demos, hunt sabbing etc, and we all got arrested for various actions, Leggo even had to spend 6 weeks on remand in Norwich prison after one particular disastrous demo when the dim-witted local authorities got it into their heads he was some local Anarchist "leader"..ha ha, they toyed with throwing terrorist charges at us all until they realised quite how foolish that was (The army bomb disposal squad was called in once to diffuse some fireworks that had been thrown into a local bank….oooh those were the days, ha ha).
No I'm not really politically active now. But I feel comfortable with that, I've come to re-evaluate what I feel really passionate about, how I want to deal with that etc. I have different priorities in my life now. To be honest, spending a year on bail going back and forth to court with the threat of imprisonment hanging over your head is a fairly sobering experience, especially as nothing was really achieved.4 - Do you have any memorable tours you'll never forget or ones you wish you
could?They were all memorable, often for the wrong reasons. But what the heck.
Best ones were touring over here with Italian hardcore legends NEGAZIONE in 1987. They were really clean cut, didn't drink, turned up with these huge flight cases full of clean clothes. And there was us, a bunch of tramps in this beat up old van, all we brought on tour with us were several crates of cheap beer none of us changed our clothes for 2 weeks. I think when they first met us they were a bit shocked. I remember the first gig, we were already drunk at the soundcheck. After they'd done their soundcheck we were totally blown away by how intense they were, so I jumped onto the stage and was raving incoherently to the singer (who didn't speak English) and I just lost my footing and fell flat on my face off the stage…he looked terrified. But we were all friends by the end of the tour..ha ha.
Touring Europe for 3 weeks in 1988 with EXTREME NOISE TERROR was a total blast, it was just pure madness full of the most ridiculous incidents. Towards the end our car blew up near the German/Austrian border and E.N.T just carried on in their van and left us stranded for 3 days in the Bavarian mountains. We ended up hiring this rather dodgy car and driving all the way to Zargreb in what was then Yugoslavia (now Croatia I think…my geography is useless) to try and find them for the last gig, we had no idea where the venue was, what it was called etc, we only found it by pure chance. When we turned up E.N.T were like "What the fuck are you doing here ? We thought you'd gone home" and refused to give us a lift back in the van so we had to hire another car and make this crazy 36 hour car drive across 5 countries to get the ferry home.5 - What are the members of DI up to these days?
Well there were probably 11 or 12 people in DI over the 7 years we were together and to be honest I've lost touch with nearly all of them. The only one I'm really still in contact with is Snapa, we're still making sporadic noise together under the moniker of BAIT. I haven't seen leggo for about 7 or 8 years, last I heard he was living in Birmingham teaching photography at the university. As for the rest, I dunno. Weirdest tale is that Tom who was the bassist on the Rock n' Roll Conformity album, when he left the band he suddenly got totally into all this bullshit far right politics and last I heard he was one of the head guys in one of the fringe BNP groups, ultra Nazi shit !!!! Talk about from one extreme to the other, fuck !
6 - I know you've designed a lot of album covers for bands. what are you working
on at the moment and how do people get in touch with you if they want you to
design their cover?At this particular moment I'm not working on any cover stuff, I recently had a lot of vague interest from several bands but nothing concrete has come of it so I'm busy working on my own personal work for a change. If anyone's interested in my stuff, then check out the BONEHIVE DESIGNS website, which can be found at - http://home.freeuk.net/bonehive , and I'm always happy to hear from anyone, just drop me a line at r.mid@ukgateway.net
7 - Have you heard much about the punk scene in Australia?
To be honest, I have heard NOTHING about the scene over there. Please educate me. Back in ye old days, back in the various communal DI houses DEPRESSION always used to be a good drinkin' favourite, remember them ?
8 - What were the last 5 records you listened to?
Errrrrr, let me think….
SUBVERT - assisted Suicides.
MINUS - Jesus Christ Bobby.
JOHN HOLMES - El louso Suavo
KYUSS - And the circus leaves town…
NEUROSIS - Sovereign9 - And finally what will cause the extinction of mankind?
Just ourselves. Our constant obsessive desire for 'progress', it is our ultimate undoing. It's frightening really, my 9 year old daughter is genuinely really worried that the world is going to end before the end of her lifetime, which I think is sad that such a young mind should have such a weighty burden on it. Hopefully she'll have her time but I think our immanent extinction is an inevitability, and that will proabaly be the best thing that could possibily happen to this planet, that is if we manage not to take the Earth with us when we go or leave it corrupted beyond hope.
Oh what a cheery way to end this interview. Anyway, thanx a lot Spider for this opportunity to rattle on a load of twaddle, it's been a pleasure squire.
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