1 - The band first played in '84. How old were you when the band formed? Also, standard question, how did you get into punk?
I was 17 when the band first formed, me and the first bassist, Ian, had already been writing stuff using that name since 83. We met Leggo and Trev at a gig, they'd been in a band called Nausea and were after getting some new shit together so we joined forces and that was that. I dunno how I got into punk, I started listening to punk in 79. I didn't ever feel like I fitted into the 'norm' at school, but punk just made sense to me. It was my calling...ha ha ha.2 - When the band first started, was their a specific sound in mind? I.E. "let's sound like this band" or "let's play like this" or anything like that? Or was it just "let's start a punk band" and the style came later?
Well we had plenty of ideas and aims, but as with most young punk bands, we couldn't play very well, so it took a while for any discernable style or sound to develop. When we started we were all really ingrained in the anarcho punk thing. We all lived together in a squat, were straight edge and vegan, in our little all black Crass style punk uniforms..ha ha. I guess we were initially doing a kind of Flux, Omega Tribe, The Mob, Conflict etc sort of thing with lots of backdrops and political handouts and stuff. Me and Leggo were also massively into Black Sabbath, plus got into the really early thrash metal stuff as it appeared, i.e the first Venom , Metallica and Slayer albums etc. And as bands like Antisect and Amebix were taking a metal element into their sound that is a similar path us and several other bands of that time took.3- DI was part of the original "crust" scene...what's your take on this? Is this important to you in terms of the significance the band holds for you? Furthermore, do you see the beginnings of "crust" as a conscious thing, the birth of this sound and style, or was it just a result of a bunch of like minded people feeding off each other? Or was it the natural evolution of taking the earlier pre-existing UK punk style to the next level? Considering, as I'm sure you know, a large part of the international punk scene has since then and continues to today (myself included) emulating the style of DI, Hellbastard, ENT, etc. And what is your take on that?
*I recently visited with punk friends in Japan, and I'm sure you've been in contact with people there, but in case you somehow don't already know, the Japanese crusties (the crust scene is totally thriving and huge) totally worship DI (and mid 80s UK scene in general). Many of my Japanese punk friends are eagerly awaiting reading this interview.
Well, it's difficult to say, looking back on it all. I know that at the time we never thought 'Crust' would become what it is now, a whole sub genre or whatever. As you said, it really was just a natural development. There was a certain element from primarily within the anarcho/punk side of things, that started getting into all the early metal. Like the bands I mentioned before, plus also all the early death, black, noise metal stuff like Voivod, Celtic Frost, Bathory and Sodom and recognized and exploited the punk elements of those bands. I remember going to see Slayers first ever U.K gig which was in the tiny Marquee club in London in 1985, and the audience was as equally made up by punx as metallers, if not more. I can't even remember where the term 'Crust' came from, it was just a word that was getting bandied about at the time, I think our initial use of the word was just to say like, something or someone was kind of rough and gnarly. There was such a great network of people in the u.k in the early-mid 80's. Everyone travelling to gigs, all dayers all over the country, always bumping into the same faces. As far as the whole 'look' went, well it really wasn't a contrived thing. It seemed to be that there was (as there has always been) a certain tribal uniform within punk and it's various factions. Those of us into all the Crass bands had been wearing all black clothes, growing our hair long etc. But just the style of living, hitching round the country, living in filthy squats, rolling about being drunk, meant that you just got dirty...ha ha. The bullet belts and such like came from the metal scene, and the dreads just started off as downwards soapy spikes I guess.....fuck knows. We were just dirty tramps I suppose. But pretty soon, I remember people dressing 'crusty' as a conscious decision. You know, rubbing dirt and margarine into their clothes, cutting holes in stuff, soaking white t-shirts in tea bags to get that filth encrusted look, and it was just ridiculous. But then again, we've all been guilty of conforming to our own little punk stereotypes in order to fit in with our own tribes. But basically the whole Crust scene was just something that happened and developed and at the time it was all just punk I guess. Looking back now though, I am really surprised to see punks and bands worldwide emulating that whole thing, the sound, the image, the whole deal. But then again, in many ways it's become far more political again which is great and I do feel very lucky to have been involved in something that has had such a lasting effect. I wouldn't label myself as 'crust' or anything these days, though I feel as Punk now as ever, ha ha, but I do still feel an affinity with that side of things and always will.4 - What was your favorite UK band of the era? Of your contemporaries so to speak...Also, can talk about a couple of your favorite and/or most memorable gigs, and why?
That's a difficult question. My favourite band of that era was probably Antisect. Most of the Norwich crew at the time were totally into that band. We used to travel about the county following them on tour etc. Amebix were also massive favourites. As you can imagine, to go from totally being into a band, looking up to them with awe and wonder to ending up being friends, playing with them was just amazing. As far as other bands at the time, us and Hellbastard were doing a similar thing at the same time. I loved the 'Ripper Crust' demo when it first came out and we gigged together quite a bit. Extreme Noise Terror were also big favourites and great friends at the time. There were so many brilliant gigs it's almost impossible to pick any particular ones. There were some totally amazing gigs at this venue called The Mermaid in Birmingham. Tons of great festivals etc. I can remember playing with both Amebix and Antiscet on numerous occasions in 86. The place would be packed with people who had traveled from all over the country, the crowd used to be mad. Everyone drunk on the cheap scrumpy they sold. We'd be drunk when we played, there would be falling bodies all over the stage, people going mental, it was just an ace time. One particular gig I also remember well was in 1988 in Zargreb, Yugoslavia on the last date of the D.I / Extreme Noise Terror tour. We'd broken down in Germany a few days before, and lost E.N.T as they'd gone to play in Austria. They just assumed we'd had to go home. But we somehow managed to get a hire car from Munich, and with no idea of where the gig was or anything we drove to Zargreb and managed to find the place. The whole atmosphere was intense. There was a lot of tension in the city anyway, ethnic stuff, the economy was in meltdown. But everyone was so pleased that we'd made the effort to play there. The crowd went so mental during the ENT set that the stage collapsed. It was just a crazy night. Next day we had to drive non stop for almost 30 hours through 5 countries to get our ferry home and we only made it by about 20 minutes.5 - Discharge & Antisect. Is one greater than the other for you? Give some of your thoughts on the impact and influence of these two, on you personally, as well the scene you were a part of. (I think this is interesting coming from a UK punk of your era). I know DI gigged with Antisect at least a few times? What was the punx of your scene's take on the Discharge of the mid-late 80s? I assume you saw them during "Why?" era or previous? Anything to say about this?
Well, in terms of long term influence on the whole punk scene then Discharge has to be the greater, no contest. "Hear Nothing....." was such a groundbreaking album, that is still being mimicked today. At the time that Deviated Instinct were playing, Antisect was definitely a bigger influence on us compared to Discharge being a bigger influence on bands like Doom etc. I have to admit I didn't see Discharge during the WHY era, and this is one thing that has bothered me ever since. In about 1982 (I think) Discharge were playing a gig in Norwich. They were pretty much my favourite band at the time, but my other favourite band was Vice Squad. Vice Squad were playing a gig the same week. I was about 15 at the time, at school and to get to a gig I had to cycle 6 miles into the city from my dead little village. My parents said that because it was a school week I could only go to one out of the two gigs. Despite the fact that I had already seen Vice Squad that year, I decided to go see them instead of Discharge (I blame my young hormones and Beki Bondage's fish nets...ha ha) I figured Discharge would come round again (they didn't), and to make matters worse, it turned out that on that tour Antisect were supporting !!!!! Arrrgghhhh.... it still bugs me to this day. I finally saw Discharge on their Grave New World tour in Leeds, They sucked soooo bad, they were almost booed off the stage. And ironically they were supported (and totally blown away) by Anti-Cimex, who of course owed their whole sound to early Discharge.6- What was your take on Peaceville selling to Music of Nations? Was DI ever a band that adhered to a DIY ethic (since you remained with the label)? What is your take on the irony of releasing a record called "Rock N Roll Conformity Fuck Off" and then staying on a label which sold its independence to a larger corporation (which is RockNRoll Conformity for sure!)...
(Don't mean to rude, please no offense).
Well, I think that we always adhered to the DIY ethic throughout. There was a brief time during the writing of Guttural Breath that we suffered from delusions of grandeur and fancied that we might become a serious metal band, but of course that never happened. We weren't as overtly political as were in the beginning but we always remained true to ourselves and I don't have any problems about working with Peaceville. Regarding the sell out to Music for Nations, it's a long while ago but as far as I recall that was certainly after 'Rock N Roll conformity' was released (there was never any 'fuck off' in the title by the way) so I don't think there was any contradictions there. I'm not even sure if the buy out happened before 'Guttural Breath' Basically though, I knew Hammy (who runs Peaceville) from before the label when he was drumming in The Instigators. He was totally routed in the DIY scene, and he started the label up from scratch. We always enjoyed working with him and he gave us a break and support when no one else would touch us and we never had any problems with him or Peaceville as a label. I don't know the ins and outs of the Music For Nations deal, what it was about, by then he'd moved onto bigger fish than us and we were dropped from the label. The label was certainly moving into a more mainstream metal area where we really didn't fit in as we soon found out. But I think he stayed true to himself, he's still releasing stuff by pretty untrendy bands, still doing it for the love of the music. I know a lot of people, bands etc had problems with them as a label but personally I really didn't and certainly don't believe that D.I compromised any ideals that we had by releasing stuff through the label.7 - International Hardcore: Give us your favorites from Italy, Finland, Sweden, Brazil, etc.
I'm afraid, you'll catch me out here as I'm not sure I'm really up to speed in what's happening in those particular countries. Italy ? - Well at the moment my fave Italian band is Entropia, my fave old bands are Wretched and Negazione. Finland ? - I really don't know. I did an album cover for Sharpeville a couple of years ago, who I think are from Finland. Their album was pretty intense. Which country did Rattus come from ? Sweden ? - I don't know, there are so many Scandinavian bands that I'm not sure which country they're from, I decline to make a fool of myself by getting them completely wrong. ha ha. And I will admit that I don't know a single band from Brazil. I'd be happy to be educated though. Who do you recommend I check out ?8- All time favorite records you still spin, and probably always will?
Is that all time favourites such as anything, at any time, or just stuff that's relative to this interview and the period of time you're asking about ? I dunno, I'm a music junky and I probably have a different 'best album ever' almost every day. Records that I can always go back to ? There's a heap, for different reasons, I guess any of the early Discharge records still give me the same buzz that they did when they first came out. I still have all the original vinyl that I bought back in 81 etc, and I still play it even though I've replaced it with CD versions etc, it still rocks to play those 7"s. And the 'Hear Nothing....." album never loses it's ferocity, and is still unsurpassed today. The first Accused album still has that bite, as does Crucifix, fuck I could go on all day. Bringing it forwards somewhat Refused 'The shape of punk to come' totally blew me away and still sounds vital now even though every band and it's goat ripped it off. And the last Converge album 'Jane Doe' is an absolute classic, I have no doubt I'll still be blasting that out in 10 years or so.9- The band became much more metal obviously, beginning with the "Guttural Breath" LP. Was this a direct result of Leggo leaving the band, or was this just too much listening to Bathory, Celtic Frost, Voivoid, etc...?
Err...a bit of both I think. Although Leggo did like a lot of metal at the time he was very much into the whole hardcore vein, and vise versa, although me and Snapa were ingrained in hardcore we were listening to way more metal, particularly those bands that you mentioned that at the time seemed a lot more extreme than anything else going on. Before there'd always been compromise within the band about how we should sound, hence the straight crossover on the first album. At that time though I was writing pretty much just full on death metal style riffs, Leggo really wanted to just push it into a more straight forward Poison Idea kinda thing. In the end, he moved to Birmingham (which is the other side of the country from here) and it just seemed the right time to part so we could both do our own thing. It was an amicable split, the typical 'musical differences' thing. So he went on to do more straight hardcore with the excellent Filthkick, and we dug deep into metal territory with 'Guttural breath'. Looking back, I regret how it all turned out. I can't listen to that album, and far prefer '...Conformity", but I guess it was just something we needed to get out of our system at the time. It never really came off though, we started taking ourselves too seriously and it wasn't fun anymore...it was just downhill from there really. I think it was too much of a departure and we would have been better keeping the hardcore feel going, it was more true to what we were about.
10 - As an artist, I'm interested to know what are some of your all time favorite punk records, in terms of artwork of course? My two favorites are GISM "Detestation" LP and Axegrinder LP inside gatefold artwork.
That's even harder to answer than the best album question. My tastes in artwork have changed a lot over the years, and something I thought looked really neat in 1984 looks really cheesy now. Although I think a lot of Pushead art is very samey and unimaginative (especially all those crappy Metallica shirt designs he did), he still has some all time classic pieces. I loved the 'Cleanse the Bacteria' comp cover, plus the C.O.C 'Animosity' sleeve art. Graphically speaking I really liked the whole strong identity of a lot of the Crass records stuff and especially G's incredible airbrush and collage work. Nowadays I really like what Aaron Turner of Hydrahead recs is doing, and also J. Bannon of Deathwish/Converge has a strong design style.11 - Your artwork on the DI records (and on the whole from what I see on your website) seems to be influenced by HR Giger. Is it? And are you a Giger fan?
Well at the time of the D.I records I'd say yes, I was very much into Giger at the time.There really wasn't anything else to touch him as far as really dark, fucked up fantasy art stuff at the time. Now, although I still very much appreciate what he does his work isn't really an influence on what I'm doing. Times have changed and with the advent of easily accessible and affordable digital kit there are a lot more artists pushing the boundaries out there.12 - What's your opinion on the idea of "Noise Not Music." Do you believe (as I do) that for DIY hardcore punk to stay independent and honest, it must to a certain degree, inevitably adhere to this idea; that it must be ugly, inaccessible and unattractive to the mainstream? Additionally, in relation to an earlier question, do you think this was part of the motivation of DI and your peers (to play and look as you did)? Or was that degree of thought never really applied, and it was just more about "being punk" and getting drunk ?
Could a band like Sore Throat, for example, who to me would be the musical extremity out of your contemporaries, along with their looks, ever be commercialized? Of course their is music of similar extremity (black metal, death metal, etc.) that is not independent, but is so of it's own volition.
Hmmm, difficult. I have to say I have a very broad range in my musical tastes. I get bored listening to the same stuff day in day out. I listen to different stuff for differently moods etc. There are days when nothing but the most pissed off, raging, discordant hardcore will do. Others when I just want anthemic sing along punk rock, others when I want something mellow, or brooding or atmospheric...whatever. I certainly don't believe in extremity for extremities sake. And certainly I don't believe in trying to be as extreme and 'unmusical' just to make it inaccessible to the mainstream. The DIY ideals that exist are more about how you handle yourself, how you exist and relate to those around you. It's about remaining honest and being true to yourself and true to what you believe in. About integrity. I think you could play music of any style, so long as the motives behind that are true. Just because someone decides it's 100% punk rock never to tune their instrument, play through 100 separate distortion pedals, record it all on a battery powered cassette player and release it on 7" flexi disc on an obscure Hungarian label with a limited edition of 2 doesn't necessarily make it good. Granted the mainstream may never touch it with a bargepole (even if they did actually know it existed) but that doesn't stop it being shit! It's great that there are bands and individuals still trying to push the boundaries and levels but for every one true totally amazing grindcore band etc, there are 1000 really dull ones. Some times there is too much placed on the so called 'shock value', or trying to piss people off with the sheer ugliness of it that there's just no intelligence and ultimately no point. There's always attempts to 'commercialize' everything and even though I think Slipknot are shit I suppose their heavier bits are pretty extreme considering there's now a few million 10 year olds happily playing that in their bedrooms. Who would have imagined that a few years ago?
Going back to the question about the crusty looks etc, I think a lot of it really was just a by product of the lifestyle, but certainly there was also an element of reveling in the fact that it pissed off the average Joe in the street. I mean, we used to get so much shit for looking like we did, not only from the general public but also from the more traditional punk community (well in this town anyway) and that spurred as on to be more extreme in looks or whatever, so I guess there was/is definitely a self conscious and deliberate element to it all.13 - Will we ever see a proper re-release of the DI records, the first two in particular? Or does Peaceville own these and so they cannot be reissued?
It's interesting that you ask that. Up until recently I had thought that they would never see the light of day again, and was pretty sure that nobody really gave a shit one way or the other anyway. But the last year or so I've had so much more mail from all round the world asking if I have spare copies of the old D.I stuff, or if it's going to come out again etc. There definitely seems to be a resurgence in interest in the whole mid 80's UK punk/crust scene. Anyway, someone also asked me if I'd be able to put all the old D.I stuff up as MP3's on the web so that people could download it all. I replied saying that I thought that was a pretty good idea, but (as you mentioned) I was fairly sure that Peaceville records owned all the rights so we'd have to square it with them first. I wrote to Hammy of Peaceville recs and asked if he had any plans for any of it ever and if not whether we could have it back to do with as we pleased. He replied saying that he hadn't ever considered re-releasing it but as the Doom and Electro Hippies reissues had done o.k maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. He said he'd give it some thought and get back to me. That was a while back and I've heard nothing since. I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand, I suppose if there is a small demand and people still seem to like that stuff it makes sense for them to be able to get it rather than having to pay silly money for the odd copies that crop up on Ebay etc. But on the other, I'm more interested in the here and now rather than raking up the past, I'd be happier if people were getting into what I'm doing now with BAIT. I don't think the D.I stuff has aged too well, it sounds pretty weak compared to most of what's going on now. Also if Peaceville do decide to release it I'd hope they would involve us, I'd be a little worried about how it would be packaged and the prices that it would be going for in mainstream shops etc. But whether it will ever happen I don't know. We are planning to put the whole NAILED ep on the web for download though as that wasn't on Peaceville.14 - Are you or were you into record collecting at all? Any vinyl gems you'd like to tell us about? Anything you're looking for?
(DI 7" and 1st LP sell for $100+ in Japan!)
I buy music, and lots of it. But no I'm not a serious record collector or anything. I'm not that obsessive (or rich!) I did have a lot of my original vinyl from the 80's stolen when I got my room broken into in about 86, much of which I could never manage to replace. Though I do still have a lot of the early/mid 80's UK anarcho punk stuff. I wouldn't know what's rare and what's not though, it's all just great noise to me ;o)
15 - OK, here's some quick ones...Axegrinder LP or Amebix "Monolith" LP?
No contest I'm afraid. Definitely Amebix (although I probably preferred 'Arise') Axegrinder wore their influences a bit too obviously but were a pale comparison really.They were good live and nice people but they never even touched the crushing masterwork that was Amebix!!Ripcord or Heresy?
I'd say I preferred Ripcord on vinyl, but definitely Heresy as a live band, incredibly intense and energetic, they were insane.Sore Throat or Electro Hippies?
I have to say I was never much of a fan of either of these. I liked Sore Throats more dirgy, industrial bits. Electro Hippies never really floated my boat at all.Napalm Death 1st LP or Repulsion LP?
Definitely Napalm Death. Mainly because I saw them live so many times during that period. They seemed to play at every hardcore festival there was and it was just the craziest, most extreme stuff out there by a long, long way. They just used to take your breath away. Many a fun, drunken night spent headbanging to 'Siege of Power'
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