So, it's been awhile...
I apologize for updating so infrequently. Between working as a busser at this new restaurant and writing for my internship at Seattle Sound (www.seattlesoundmag.com), I don't have too much time, and the time that I do have either ends up being spent hanging with friends and going to shows.
As soon as Ian gets back we will be doing a second run of Maintain Issue One. And just to let you know, I am currently planning issue 2. Expect good things such as...H20, Have Heart, Neurosis, Cold World, Killing the Dream and much, much more.
I went to see Origin and Misery Index at Studio Seven earlier tonight and yeah, I kind of remembered why I don't go to many metal shows. While the music is rad, I just don't get the same communal feeling that I do from punk and hardcore shows. Whatevs.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Ghost Story
Here is the uncut version of the interview I did with Sinking Ships vocalist Danny Hesketh. I had to condense this a little for the print copy, but here it is in its original form. Enjoy. Let me know what you think.
Currently listening: Hostage Calm- Lens
Maintain Fanzine: First off, I was just kind of wondering how many interviews you’ve done while you’ve been in Sinking Ships?
Danny Hesketh: How many interviews? I can’t give you an exact amount, but I would say probably 20 to 30.
MF: Any memorable ones stick out? It doesn’t matter whether they were bad or good?
DH: The only one that comes to my mind right now was when we played a show in London and right before we played… well, it was actually just me and Rob from Ruiner…we sat down because this girl wanted to do an interview with both of us, but we said we would only do it if we did it together. And it wound up that she had a notebook that had all the questions that she wanted to ask, so I took the notebook and I started asking Rob all the questions and he started asking me all the questions and we basically just had a lot of ridiculous answers. And I threw in some of my own and it was a pretty funny one. I never saw the interview written. It was probably for a super DIY zine that she only made a few copies of and like ten fifteen people ever read it. But if I ever found a copy of it, I would love to look back at it and read the dumb shit that we said.
MF: You think she was satisfied with the way it turned out?
DH: I don’t think she expected it, but I hope she was. Also, that was the first time I announced that we were leaving Rev [Revelation Records] and I, at the time, thought ‘Oh, shit, this is going to get out that we’re leaving Rev and it’s gonna be a big deal.’ But then I remembered that no one really gives a shit anyways and like it’s ever going to get back to them.
MF: What are you doing right now? What are you up to?
DH: Like this second?
MF: Yeah, this second. Right now.
DH: I’m hanging out with Eric [Little Eric] and I just got back from a barbecue at the Dangler and we’re watching episodes of the Family Guy and just kind of hanging out.
MF: Which episode is it?
DH: I don’t know. I’m not really paying attention. But the last episode had something to do with Louis having a brother that killed fat people. I don’t know. It was kind of weird.
MF: I guess just going into it, you obviously know some of the reasons I’m doing this interview. You guys just announced your two last shows. When was this decision made?
DH: The decision was made right when we got back from Japan. The day we got back from Japan we were supposed to play a show with Blacklisted, but we couldn’t even get our shit together to do that. Right before we left for Japan, I was in the hospital for a week for some personal shit and the idea of going to Japan was a really stressful thing for all of us. We knew we were gonna have a lot of fun, but there was a lot of shit hanging over. And when we got back, me and Paul sat down and talked and we decided right then and there that we were done. And we broke up the day after we got back from Japan. We took about a week to figure out how to announce it. Tokyo was going to be our last show. That was it. We weren’t going to play a last show, not in the states. We were done. There were a lot of issues with a lot of us. Not personal issues with each other, because we’re all friends and it’s not like we didn’t get along with each other. It was just, we all started to have a lot of shit going on in our lives, some more than others, and it got to the point where it was pretty much physically impossible to continue as a band. It just couldn’t happen.
MF: I’m not going to go into too personal of questions because that’s between you and whoever you want to talk to. I’m not going to print it in a zine or anything.
DH: Yeah, I don’t really feel like putting that shit in a zine.
MF: Yeah, for sure. But I was just wondering, was Japan pretty taxing on you guys because, I mean coming back from Japan and immediately breaking up. Was it hard doing that tour?
DH: Well, the tour for me was very hard. For personal reasons, the tour was very hard for me. I wasn’t in a good place on that tour. I had fun and it was a great experience and I loved that I went, but it was a very hard thing for me to do and a lot of the reason that when I came home I made the decision that I couldn’t do the band anymore. I’m not gonna put it all on me. It was a decision that was made by me and Paul, but a very big part of the reason that we decided to break up was because of me. But being in Japan and the experience of it, especially with Down to Nothing, it was hard at the time, but at the same time it was a great experience and I had a lot of fun.
MF: Awhile back , there were some rumors that you guys were going to break up, but then your band addressed the rumors and said you weren’t going to be breaking up and you would be sticking around to put out a full length yourselves. Then you guys obviously did just announce you were breaking up. What was going on there? Did you guys have plans to break up originally?
DH: No, we never had plans to break up originally. Basically, everyone thought we were breaking up because we decided that we had been touring for so long and Paul had personal shit that he needed to deal with. He was unable to do a few tours, a few important tours. He was unable to come along with us when we were supposed to do that Sick of It All/ Madball tour, which luckily Down to Nothing did and they did way better than we would have. And then he was unable to do Europe with us last time, and that was getting kind of hard for us to handle. But we didn’t want to break up. Oh, and another reason was that Andy moved. We lost our drummer, so it kind of seemed like that would be the logical step, but in a lot of ways, we were not perfectly happy with our last record Disconnecting. We weren’t happy with the way Revelation did it, we weren’t happy with our relationship with Revelation. Bob Shedd, the A&R guy there, had left Revelation. So we said ‘Fuck it. We’re not going to be on Revelation anymore,’ and we chose to opt out of our contract. We had a clause in our contract that said that if Bob Shedd leaves, we’re gone - no matter what, no matter if we’re optioned for another, no matter if you want us to do another record - we’re done. We’re out of here. And we used that option and decided to leave. Then around that time that happened people were just assuming that we got dropped from Rev and that we were going to break up. That wasn’t the case at all. We decided that we were just going to put it out ourselves and that we would get distribution for it. That shouldn’t be a problem, we would pay for it, I’d pay for it, because I knew I would mostly make my money back on it. So the plan was always to write that record. And the record is actually written. Musically, the record’s written. Paul has it and I have a CD of it. It’s not professionally recorded, but I have the demo tracks of it. From start to finish, the record’s written. It was always planned that we were going to put it out.
MF: Do you think that will ever see the light of day, like if you release a discography or anything like that. Maybe demo tracks at the end?
DH: Oh no, we would have to record it and I would have to do lyrics. The original plan was that I was going to write lyrics for it when I was in the hospital and I was supposed to write lyrics for it when I was in Japan. The entire point of the record was to be a brighter record, a more positive record. I’m not saying positive like The First Step , ‘We’re all together, we love each other, life’s great’ type of record, but if you read the lyrics to Disconnecting, a lot of them are very depressing and the idea of the next record was to maybe, kind of lighten up a little bit, maybe have a little hope. And I wasn’t in a place at the time that I could write those lyrics. And that would be yet another of the many reasons that we weren’t able to finish that record.
MF: For sure. I can only imagine. If you were having some personal problems, why would you be able to write a record that’s really positive, that would’ve been too forced?
DH: It would have absolutely been forced. One thing that I will stand by with Disconnecting, is that the lyrics to Disconnecting, I mean, minus a few songs, there’s some shit songs on that record. I’m not gonna lie. But the good songs on that record, the lyrics to those songs are deep from within. How do I put it? They’re fucking honest is what I mean to say. They’re honest and they’re exactly where I was when I was writing them. If we did another record where we were trying to do something different, it wouldn’t have been from where I was at. I just couldn’t do it.
MF: I had a question about your clause when Bob was leaving Revelation. Why did you guys put that in there? Was Rev such a bad place to be at that point? Was it such a bad label without him?
DH: Yes…(Long pause) Okay, honestly, there’s some people there that I do enjoy as people, there really are, but the way the label was run, it was not run like a label that I would want to be a part of. Bob seemed to be the only person that had a good head on his shoulders as far as hardcore bands went. Without Bob being there to make it work and trying to get what we wanted done and have our record turn out the way we wanted it to turn out, it could not have happened. That’s why when we were writing it, and we knew that going into it, that’s why we put the clause on the contract. It’s because we knew that if Bob wasn’t going to be there, there was no way, no way it would work.
MF: Well that’s good you guys could look into the future a little bit. You at least realized that. Give me some examples of what you would picture a label you would want to be on to do for the band.
DH: They wasted a lot of money on advertising that was pointless. No one reading fucking AMP is gonna see a fucking ad, a quarter page ad for Sinking Ships ‘Disconnecting’ and go ‘Oh, I’m gonna buy that.’ Or, for instance, right now, obviously one of the best promotions that you can possibly do is to hype a fucking record up on the internet. Use the internet as a tool because every fucking hardcore kid is on there. The hardcore scene is no longer kids at fucking shows, it’s kids on the internet, that’s just the way it is. But they couldn’t even get an intern to fucking hype that shit up on the internet. But there were a tons of things – stickers, mailers- the promotion was all off. But it wasn’t just all that, we ran into a lot of problems when it came to street dates. We weren’t able to get records on time for tour because of street dates. And the records we got charged a little too much for. And they didn’t come in time. Revelation, as a label, treated it far more like a business than it was a hardcore label. Revelation was far more concerned with its distribution, because that’s where they made all their money. That’s where they make all their money. They are a distribution center that happens to put out records. Looking to a record label right now, there’s not a lot that a hardcore label can do besides be psyched on the bands that they have on their label, give a shit about the bands they have on their label and do everything that they can to make sure that the bands they have on their label are successful. Revelation Records didn’t give a fuck about us, the majority of the people. Here’s a little anecdote right here about one of the decisions for me that made it definite in my mind that I’m done with this label. Sound and Fury last year we released our Ten 7 inch. Right where our merch booth was set up was the Revelation Records booth where they had their distro and everything like that. I set out my Ten 7 inches. The guys running the booth over there, they work at Revelation Records, they are in the office every day, they fucking work there. One of those dudes walked over, looked down and said, ‘You guys put out a new 7 inch?’ And he works at the fucking label. Nice guy, I have nothing against him, but the fact that he had no idea we had even put out a 7 inch, that’s bullshit. If you’re on a label that doesn’t even care about you, then why be on that fucking label? We had always talked about how we were going to put out the next record ourselves and how if we wanted to go to another label, regardless of its size, that wasn’t what mattered, what mattered was that it had to be a label that actually was psyched to have us on it and wanted us to succeed and wanted to do everything they could to help us out and just be overall happy that we were on their label. To us, it seemed like Revelation thought they were doing us a favor by putting out our record.
MF: Well then I guess I’m just wondering how you feel about, well I can’t really call it a trend, but bands like Trash Talk that are leaving a label like Malfunction and Deathwish who could do a lot of things for them and just doing it themselves. How do you feel about that?
DH: I back it. I back it completely. I think that’s kind of the way that a lot of bands are doing it right now. Seriously, as far as hardcore goes, if you have enough money and if you can afford it through credit cards or whatever…like for us, that’s what we did… really, if you can afford it, why the fuck not? Especially for a band like Trash Talk that’s on Malfunction, why the fuck not just do it yourself? That’s how they did it 10, 15 years ago. These big labels right now, what can they do for a mid-sized hardcore band right now? Deathwish can do a lot of fucking things for big bands and bands that want to be tour… not to say that Trash Talk doesn’t want to be on tour all the time, they’ve got their shit together… but I’m saying if you have a band who wants to make it and if you have a band that want to fucking be able to break through and get on those big tour and get well known, I don’t even know what I’m saying right now. I’m trying to verbalize it. What I’m trying to say is that there are certain bands that need to be on that kind of a label, then there are other bands that there’s no fucking reason that they can’t just do it themselves and have the same amount of success. For us, personally, damn near everything we did, we did ourselves and we did just fine. We booked every one of our tours, minus Europe because we’re not that talented. It seems that everything we did, minus that fucking Revelation Record ‘Disconnecting’, we did it ourselves. So why the fuck not just put out a record ourselves? And it’s not like we couldn’t find distribution for it, it’s gonna get into all the same stores that if Rev did it. So why not? Then we have the freedom to do whatever we want with the record. If we want to do a fucking gatefold with fucking cut outs and screen prints and if we want to do some fucking fucked up ass vinyl and if we want to do an album that’s one sided and it we want to do 8 inches that are in the shape of fucking penises, whatever. Fuck it, we could do it because we’re doing it ourselves.
(Knocking on the door)
MF: Hey Danny, could you hold on a minute. My neighbor’s knocking on my door.
DH: Okay, this is a fucked up interview. This better be in the interview.
(Kevin answers the door)
Neighbor lady: Here’s some chocolates.
MF: Oh, thank you.
NL: Take care.
(Back on the phone)
MF: My neighbor just gave me some chocolates.
DH: That’s nice. This is all going in the interview by the way.
MF: Well I guess we kind of switched things up a little bit. I’ll just bring things in a different direction. Do you personally look at hardcore any different after going on tour and being in a fairly popular band?
DH: I wouldn’t go as far as saying fairly popular. But do I look at hardcore any differently? If I do look at hardcore differently in any way it’s not the fact that I’ve toured like I did, it’s the fact that I’m older than I was when I first got into hardcore. Not to say that I don’t respect hardcore as much as I did, not to say I don’t like hardcore as much as I did. Being on tour, you do see a hell of a lot more bands and you do see some really good bands and you do some really fucking terrible bands. But it hasn’t changed my view of it too much, I’ve just gotten older and my musical preference and my musical taste has broadened and I’m not so closed minded to other music. So I don’t exactly listen to as much hardcore as I used to, but that’s not because I don’t like it anymore. It’s because I’ve found other things that I appreciate as well. You can’t only listen to hardcore when you like other stuff.
MF: I can kind of picture it, but just give me a picture of what it was like being in the van with your band. How was the dynamic on the road?
DH: On the road it depended. Roger was annoying as fuck. Roger is the kind of person that reads every sign that passes by and talks in stupid fucking voices. He will see a fucking sign that says PetSmart and says, “Is it Pets Mart or is it Pet Smart? I don’t know.” And you’re sitting in a van with him like that and you’re like, “Really, Roger? Did you need to say that?” Everything that he fucking thinks about he vocalizes and he’s fucking obnoxious. Collin? Collin doesn’t fuckin’ talk usually. He hangs out in the back or he drives and he just chills. He just chills, he’s whatever. He’s not super psyched to be on tour usually, but he doesn’t hate it, he’s just there. Andy was always a blast. He always played, if we had a tour manager, he was the guy. He was the one dealing.. if we actually got paid.. he was the one dealing with it. When we were in the van he would usually sit in the passenger seat, that was the front shotgun seat, which was his seat, which was great because it was the most uncomfortable seat and he would just throw on his headphones. He would listen to mostly Queens of the Stone Age or maybe Shipwreck. Paul was Paul. Paul was the same dude he always is, he would listen to weird music, he would fucking…I don’t know. I can’t really describe Paul right now. He was just you know, a dude in a van and I was just a dude in a van. We talked and we hung out and sometimes on late nights we would sit and be driving somewhere in the Midwest with the sun coming up and we would have some deep fucking conversations about some silly ass shit that doesn’t matter. As far as anyone fighting or anyone not getting along, that was never the case. I mean, me and Paul got into it a few times over some silly shit to where we would have to pull off to the side of the road and one of us would have to fucking go walk off. But that’s the way it’s going to be with any band, you’re always going to have conflict. But for the most part we all got along really well and there were never a lot of issues.
MF: Well since we’re talking about the band and how it was, I was just kind of wondering if there were any goals with the band that you didn’t reach or was it all pretty much achieved?
DH: No, there’s definitely goals that I really wanted. I mean, as far as band size goes, I’m very happy with the reactions we got and how far we went and the amount of kids that liked us. We never set out to be a band like Have Heart or a band like fucking Ceremony. We got through a lot of really cool shit. We never got to go to Australia, that breaks my heart. I always, always wanted to go to Australia. We never got to go to South America, which few bands do, but we had contacts and Andy was slowly trying to get it out there. One of the plans with us releasing our own record was we were going to license the fuck out of it and just get every single place we could get to license it and put it out. That’s the best way to get it out there. That’s how we got to Japan. We let Alliance Trax throw on a couple songs. We always planned to go to Alaska, but it never panned it. We always planned on playing every single state, except for maybe Hawaii, because seriously, who plays Hawaii? You just can’t do it. Other than that, I’m pretty happy with how far we got and how much we did and the effort we put in. I don’t think it was any lack of effort that kept those goals from getting accomplished.
MF: How about the progression of the sound? I mean, the demo was pretty straight forward with some short songs then the songs got a little bit longer and more bummed out toward the end. Are you happy with the way that ended with the last EP?
DH: No, no, not at all. If you want to go over the progression, you’ve got the demo where Paul’s obviously influenced by bands like In My Eyes, and I’ll be honest, Paul wrote half those lyrics. I only wrote half of those. They weren’t super depressed they were just hardcore songs. Hardcore songs can be sad at times, but they weren’t super bumming and super down. Meridian, which was our first real 7 inch…
MF: Run for Cover Records.
DH: Run for Cover Records, Jeff Kazzazza (sp?) - douchebag. Jeff Idiot is his name actually, not douchebag. Jeff Idiot… a lot of problems with that record. The sound there, Paul got a little influenced by Staygold, obviously because he was in Staygold, whether they say it or not, he was. So we had a couple songs like that. I was in a different spot when I wrote the lyrics for that so it started to get a little more depressing. Then we had Disconnecting which is a very depressing record and is actually a record that, well…we’re getting ready to play our last shows, we have our last Seattle show coming up at Rain Fest next weekend and I’m going back and reading those lyrics and making sure I know them all, and at this point a lot of those lyrics are hard for me to read. A lot of them…well, I was in a place and I was in a time that, well, you know…It’s hard for me to go back and read them. We’re still going to play those songs and it’ll still be fine, but it was from a different, different, different place. Then the last two 7 inches we did kind of switched gears as it lyrically went and I tried to have my songs mean a little bit more and have a little bit more social leaning, not so introverted. They are still very personal songs in the ay that I feel about certain things, but I tried to kind of do that maybe just a little bit. Then there’s a 7 inch that no one’s heard and no one’s ever going to hear.
MF: I got it.
DH: You have that 7 inch?
MF: The one with the Whiskeytown cover?
DH: Yeah, the one with the Whiskeytown cover.
MF: It sounds like NOFX.
DH: That’s a fucking weird comparison. I don’t think it sounds like NOFX at all.
MF: Your voice sounds like Fat Mike.
DH: That sucks and you’re crazy.
MF: (Laughs hysterically)
DH: That song was written about a very very very very very bad bad bad bad bad bad time, bad time, as well as the very last song we recorded. Both of them were about the same thing. I had a life changing event that happened and that’s what those songs are about. Pretty much that whole long schpeel that if anyone ever reads this, people are gonna pass straight to it, feel free to skip all that and know that our lyrics got more depressing the more depressed that I got as a person and it ended with us recording our very last song ‘Out of Touch’ which has some very deep meaning that we don’t need to get into to. Then that other song Bee Honda that’s on that 7 inch, we wrote that thing fucking years ago and just re-recorded it because we needed another song.
MF: Brian Honda?
DH: No, Bee Honda.
MF: Was that a reference to Brian Honda?
D: It may have been, it may not have been. Who knows? Who knows what it is?
MF: I guess going into some potentially awkward and random questions… Did it bug you at all being compared to Champion because of your brother? If so, did your opinion change over time?
DH: No, I always knew it was going to be “Oh, that’s the singer from Champion’s little brother’s band.” But dude, hey, I was going to Champion shows since they started. I knew that if I started a band that’s the way it was always going to be. Champion was one of the most influential hardcore bands of the last ten years, fuck what anyone else says. They did so much and they did so much for so many people and I’m so fucking proud of them. So if anyone ever came up to me and said anything about “Oh, you’re the singer of Champion’s little brother,” that never bothered me, not once. I’m fucking proud of my brother and his accomplishments. I thought it was funny that for a time there, people tried to make fun of me for it and they thought it was an insult. And by no means is it an insult. But when I would read reviews and it would say that our music sound like Champion Jr., I would just laugh because if you really think that our songs sound anything like Champion you obviously don’t really listen to a lot of hardcore and you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. We sounded nothing like Champion. The vocals might have been a little similar, but not really. I sing like a fucking banshee, I have such a loud, obnoxious voice that we don’t sound anything like that shit. But it doesn’t bother me.
MF: Well then obviously, both you and your brother were both singers of what I think are prominent hardcore bands. Have your parents always been supportive of this?
DH: I guess. I mean, you know…neither of my parents have ever seen me play. I think the first time my dad saw Jim play was the last show. They’ve been supportive of it, they’ve thought it was cool, but it was never like super, super supportive, not like I’ve seen and come into contact with bands where their parents will buy them a van and buy them equipment and be like, “You’re gonna make it and this is gonna be great.” These bands whose parents will totally help them out and support them financially, nothing like that with us. It’s just kind of like, “Oh, that’s what you’re doing, that’s cool.”
MF: This is weird question and it might be also awkward. But it seems like there’s some bands that always get an amazing reaction at home. But Sinking Ships have always been hit and miss in Seattle. Why do you think that was?
DH: Fuck hit and miss. We did good when we had a demo out, but once Meridian came out and we had a 7 inch, no one gave a fuck about it anymore. Seattle stopped giving a shit. I think some of the reason was that we wanted to be a real hardcore band and we wanted to tour and we wanted to get out there, so we would go on tour for a few months and we would come home and play a show and a lot of the kids would forget about us. Then especially, a lot of the kids who liked us, they just stopped coming around. Then Seattle got on a fucking kick where everyone wanted to be fucking 80’s old school thrash and no one wanted to fucking listen to some cheesy ass melodic hardcore band. They all wanted their shit to sound fucking fast and thrashy or, especially now, heavy and ignorant. And hey, that’s great, that’s Seattle’s vibe, that’s fucking cool for them. We accepted a long time ago that Seattle was never going to be one of those places where we were gonna get a good reaction. For instance, Down to Nothing, I like bringing them up because they’re one of my favorite hardcore bands and I love those guys to death. Richmond, Down to Nothing, that’s some of the craziest shows you’ll ever see. They have such a fucking loyal fan base there. So many friends, it’s fucking amazing. Seeing Have Heart in Boston is just fucking insane. And, you know, it used to upset us a little bit that we didn’t have that and we didn’t understand, but we kind of just stopped giving a shit. Because who really fucking cares? So what? A lot of kids in Seattle either don’t know who we are or don’t give a fuck. For instance, at one of the last Seattle shows we played, that Winter Ball we played, we played early and I looked around and we didn’t get a very good reaction. For the amount of kids that were there, the reaction was not that great and we knew it wasn’t going to be that great. But the funny thing I noticed was that probably 40 percent of the crowd were kids I had never seen in my entire life. It’s a new group of kids and a lot of those kids, it was probably the first time they had ever seen us. So you know, whatever, it’s not that big of a deal. We get it. We understand it. We’re not bitter about it. We weren’t going to play a last show in Seattle. It wasn’t going to happen. The only reason, and I mean this, for me personally, the only reason we’re playing a last show in Seattle at Rain Fest is because Andy Rice is going to be there and he wants to do it. And it would be nice to play a last show where Andy gets to fucking play. I guess that’s not the real reason because I can think off the top of my head 10 to 15 kids that are my friends that would like to see us one last time. It would be kind of lame to not let them see us one last time. But am I expecting it to be a fucking, like, last show like the Champion last show or The Answer’s last show? No. I’m not expecting anything. I’m expecting the same group of kids that fucking went off for us every time we played, there was probably 10 to 15 of them, I expect them to be there going off and we’re going to have fun and I’m not expecting anything more.
MF: I know it’s definitely one of the sets I’m looking the most forward to this weekend. Of course I’ll definitely be at Sound and Fury too.
DH: Oh, well good. Have you seen on the Sound and Fury Myspace they have all these wallpapers?
MF: Yeah, I downloaded it and it was really funny because I downloaded it and then I was just playing on my computer and made my browser smaller and saw that I’m actually in the picture.
DH: Dude, you’re right there, you’re getting ready to stage dive. I was so fucking psyched on that. That picture is… that picture is fucking cool. I love that picture. But I like it even more because it’s like, “Oh hey, there’s Kevin Diers right there, that’s fucking cool.”
MF: Since you grew up in the northwest hardcore scene, you’ve been around for awhile, it was probably a lot smaller when you started going to shows. Is it weird for you to see that the northwest even has its own three day hardcore festival now?
DH: I don’t know how that’s happening. I’m sorry, I don’t get it. I’m not even thinking about it because I’m just glad that I have no part of it. The northwest having a three day hardcore fest, to me, that’s such a polar concept that I can’t even wrap my head around it. I don’t even know. The hardcore scene here is…I don’t know. It’s hard for me to understand that. I went to ON’s first show, the Legitimate Brocase, the best bands in Seattle right now, by far, hands down- Get the Most, Circles, Keep it Clear and ON- four of the best hardcore bands in Seattle, the place was crowded. I don’t know exactly how many people were there, maybe 50, 60. To me, that’s the Seattle hardcore scene, that’s just what I see. I don’t understand how there’s going to be a three-day fest. I don’t know where these people are.
MF: For example though, that same night there was a show going on…well, given it was a crap metal core show, but there was a show going on at Studio 7 and there was a show at Viaduct. When all those shows combine it could be a ton of people. There are people from Eastern Washington and these people from different pockets of the Northwest that will come out for a big fest.
DH: It’s still just different for me because I do remember a time where you would go to a show and if there was fucking 50 kids there it would be the biggest shows you’d seen in a long time. Minus the RCKNDY shows where Trial and Hatebreed would play, and then there would be a ton of fucking people. But you’re right, people come out of the woodwork and the hardcore scene is far bigger than I realize it is and it’s probably because I was on tour for so long and I didn’t see it grow. Now it’s a lot bigger than it was.
MF: I was actually wondering how much of an impact growing up in the somewhat dingy suburb has had on the lyrics you write?
DH: Ummm, well it had a lot of impact on writing the song Auburn, but as far as writing a lot of my other lyrics…I mean obviously they would have some impact because where you grow up in your childhood it forms the person who you are, it really does. So the person that I am has something to do with where I grew up. But a lot of my lyrics were situational due to things that had happened recently in my life that didn’t have a lot to do with where I was living, but more to what mental state I was in. Maybe what city I was living in had some effect on that, but it’s hard to say how much.
MF: Tell me a little bit more about when you first started getting into hardcore. What was your first memory of a show?
D: Honestly, my first memory, and I know I had been to quite a few shows before this because I would get drug along with…well, kind of. My brother would rarely bring me along to shows. I don’t think he liked his little brother tagging along, he might say differently, but that’s the impression that I got. There was another group of kids from Auburn that were older that were my brothers friends that would bring me along. But to be perfectly honest, the first memory…and I do have a shit memory, so it’s hard for me to remember…but the first big hardcore show that I remember, like clearly remember was Misfits and Sick of It All and somebody else important, but I don’t know who the fuck it was. And like I said, I know there was probably a full year of shows I went to before that, like random little Left with Nothing shows or something. Or Last Man Standing or Everything Went Black or something like that. But as far as the first one I have a vivid memory of was seeing Sick of It All at that show which was kind of a big deal for me. Not the Misfits though, they Misfits fucking sucked.
MF: How old were you at that point?
DH: Fuck. That was probably 98, so….however old I am now minus a few years.
MF: How was the hardcore scene around where you were living compared to now where you can go to high school and see a crap load of people that are straight edge or into hardcore?
DH: It was kind of cool, actually, because Auburn had a few kids. Freshman year of high school there was Little Eric, who’s in the other room and got pissed off at me for doing this interview because we’re trying to watch Family Guy and he’s sulking in his room. Little Eric, he came around and he started going to shows, like 9th-10th grade or so. Then Collin, who I’ve known for years, and is the bass player for Sinking Ships and then there was a few other kids. There was a group that was a few years older than me, probably like three or four punk kids that would go to the shows, so I had a ride. There was a good amount, maybe five or so, kids in my high school that actually knew what the fuck hardcore was and were at least moderately into it.
MF: This is kind of a weird question coming from me. I know I had a role in this, but you grew up in Auburn, you listened to KGRG, you heard the ska bands, you heard the pop punk bands on it. Was it weird when you heard your band played on KGRG?
DH: Yeah, it was. I thought it was a little weird. I though it was pretty cool. I was pretty into it. I don’t really listen to KGRG too much, just because it’s way too much ska and way too much bad, bad music and way too much Ruckus, but whatever. It’s a cool radio station. It was really weird the first time I heard it. We were probably at work and my boss was listening to it and one of our songs came on and I was like, “Oh, interesting, we’re getting played on the radio. That’s fucking weird.”
MF: What are you guys’ future plans after the band?
DH: Future plans… I’ll see if I can go through what we’ve got going on. Nasty sounds like he’s going to becoming an adult. Andy is out in Boston, I don’t know if he’s going to start working for a booking agency. I, personally think he’s miserable and within a year he’ll move back, but I don’t know, he’s just doing his fucking thing. Me and Paul are working together. He’s been talking about starting up in school again or something, maybe something else. I know he’s got a couple bands he’s going to be starting up, nothing like Sinking Ships. I don’t even know, I don’t talk to Paul that much anymore so I don’t really know what they’re going to sound like. I know a couple of them, or at least one of them, he’s working with Funds from Shook Ones. Roger, it sounds like he’s getting ready to wife-up and move down to New Mexico where his girlfriend lives. I’ve got two bands I’m trying to start right now. One of them looks like it’s not gonna happen. It was supposed to be a post-punk band with Gabe from down here. That’s probably not gonna happen. But the past couple days me and Kelly from Shook Ones have been talking pretty seriously about getting something going. So we’re gonna work on that. I really, really, really wanna get something going right away. Nothing serious, nothing super “let’s jump in the van and fucking do this,” but something where I can actually have an outlet again to write a lot of the shit I need to write that I couldn’t write for Sinking Ships because it wasn’t right. There’s a lot of stuff I need, need to write. I need the band where I can do that and not make it sound real fucking weird.
MF: Do you think it will be a hardcore band?
DH: No. It’s not going to be a hardcore band. I’m telling you right now, it’s not. There’s no way. I’m not going to do another hardcore band. I did a hardcore band for four years it’s time for me to try something different.
MF: Do you know what kind of sound you guys want to go for or is it just kind of up in the air?
DH: It’s pretty much up in the air. We did a little bit, just a little bit of experimenting with my voice, through recording, to see exactly where it’s at. I’m not really looking to sing, sing, I’m just looking to do a little more with my voice than I did with Sinking Ships. I’m sure I don’t have pitch, so I’m sure it’s going to sound like hell, but whatever. We’ll probably just play a few shows, no one’s going to hear it, who gives a shit? We’re going to see how it goes. Kelly’s going to write a few songs. We don’t even have a drummer, so he’s going to write some songs and I’m going to check ‘em out and if we’re into it, then we’ll find somebody to throw some drum tracks on it and I’ll do some vocals and we’ll have something.
MF: Well I know you went to school for, well I don’t know if this is the major, but you studied a lot of film stuff. Is there any possibility of doing anything there? Maybe, maybe a Moshbot 2?
DH: Never gonna happen. That shit’s fucking dumb. That shit’s embarrassing and thank God that no one has it. No, I’m not really interested in it. For awhile there, there were some plans for the last year or so that I would be going back to school, but due to a lot of stuff that’s happened lately, I’m definitely re-evalutating what the fuck I’m going to do with my life. I mean, fuck, who knows? It’s up in the air. I just don’t know. I’ve got a steady job and a place to live for the time being and I’m gonna try to put my life back together and when I’m in a better place, I will start figuring out what’s next.
MF: As far as things that really stick out to you, what do you think you will remember as the best show Sinking Ships has played?
DH: Um, I can’t say the best show, but a lot of the Chain Reaction shows in Anaheim California were some of the coolest fucking shows I’ve ever played, because honestly those were some of the best reactions we’ve ever gotten. The last show of our last European tour was a fucking amazing show. I can’t remember the name of the town, it was in Germany. That show was just fucking retarded. The first and the last shows of that tour with Ruiner, those right there were fucking amazing shows. That and playing in Warsaw, that was a cool show. I just gave you like four shows, but those are the shows that are going to probably stay with me the most. I mean, clearly there were some important shows we got to play, like we played Staygold’s last show and we played Champion’s last show and stuff like that. But really, those mean a lot to me, but the one’s I said earlier I think mean a little more.
MF: You said you’ll remember the shows in Southern California. Last year when I went to Sound and Fury I was so amazed by the reaction you got in Southern California compared to Seattle. Is that kind of one of the reasons you guys are playing your last show in Southern California at Sound and Fury?
DH: No. It just happens to be after Rain Fest and it just happened that Andy is going to be there. Dead serious. That is the reason why Sound and Fury is going to be our last, last show, is because Andy is going to be there with Meltdown and I know me and Paul were going to go anyways just because Bob Shedd is one of the three dudes that runs that fest and he has helped us out more than any person has helped us out. It would be cool to play his fest one last time. We wouldn’t have done it if Andy wouldn’t have been there. But shit, he’s already going to be there, so why the fuck not?
MF: When it’s all said and done, what do you want your band to be remembered as?
DH: Honestly, I just want somebody to remember that we were a band. Negative, positive, I don’t give a fuck. Years down the road, I would like people to actually go ‘Sinking Ships? Oh yea, that was a hardcore band.’ I would be happy with that. That’s it. If they liked us, great. If we wrote lyrics that inspired them, great. If kids found the connection with my deeply personal lyrics and they were able to somehow apply them to their lives, that is amazing and that makes me feel like I actually did something good. But really, if people just fucking remember that we were a band. That would make me the happiest.
MF: Any last words?
D: Fuck Eric Wallace.
Currently listening: Hostage Calm- Lens
Maintain Fanzine: First off, I was just kind of wondering how many interviews you’ve done while you’ve been in Sinking Ships?
Danny Hesketh: How many interviews? I can’t give you an exact amount, but I would say probably 20 to 30.
MF: Any memorable ones stick out? It doesn’t matter whether they were bad or good?
DH: The only one that comes to my mind right now was when we played a show in London and right before we played… well, it was actually just me and Rob from Ruiner…we sat down because this girl wanted to do an interview with both of us, but we said we would only do it if we did it together. And it wound up that she had a notebook that had all the questions that she wanted to ask, so I took the notebook and I started asking Rob all the questions and he started asking me all the questions and we basically just had a lot of ridiculous answers. And I threw in some of my own and it was a pretty funny one. I never saw the interview written. It was probably for a super DIY zine that she only made a few copies of and like ten fifteen people ever read it. But if I ever found a copy of it, I would love to look back at it and read the dumb shit that we said.
MF: You think she was satisfied with the way it turned out?
DH: I don’t think she expected it, but I hope she was. Also, that was the first time I announced that we were leaving Rev [Revelation Records] and I, at the time, thought ‘Oh, shit, this is going to get out that we’re leaving Rev and it’s gonna be a big deal.’ But then I remembered that no one really gives a shit anyways and like it’s ever going to get back to them.
MF: What are you doing right now? What are you up to?
DH: Like this second?
MF: Yeah, this second. Right now.
DH: I’m hanging out with Eric [Little Eric] and I just got back from a barbecue at the Dangler and we’re watching episodes of the Family Guy and just kind of hanging out.
MF: Which episode is it?
DH: I don’t know. I’m not really paying attention. But the last episode had something to do with Louis having a brother that killed fat people. I don’t know. It was kind of weird.
MF: I guess just going into it, you obviously know some of the reasons I’m doing this interview. You guys just announced your two last shows. When was this decision made?
DH: The decision was made right when we got back from Japan. The day we got back from Japan we were supposed to play a show with Blacklisted, but we couldn’t even get our shit together to do that. Right before we left for Japan, I was in the hospital for a week for some personal shit and the idea of going to Japan was a really stressful thing for all of us. We knew we were gonna have a lot of fun, but there was a lot of shit hanging over. And when we got back, me and Paul sat down and talked and we decided right then and there that we were done. And we broke up the day after we got back from Japan. We took about a week to figure out how to announce it. Tokyo was going to be our last show. That was it. We weren’t going to play a last show, not in the states. We were done. There were a lot of issues with a lot of us. Not personal issues with each other, because we’re all friends and it’s not like we didn’t get along with each other. It was just, we all started to have a lot of shit going on in our lives, some more than others, and it got to the point where it was pretty much physically impossible to continue as a band. It just couldn’t happen.
MF: I’m not going to go into too personal of questions because that’s between you and whoever you want to talk to. I’m not going to print it in a zine or anything.
DH: Yeah, I don’t really feel like putting that shit in a zine.
MF: Yeah, for sure. But I was just wondering, was Japan pretty taxing on you guys because, I mean coming back from Japan and immediately breaking up. Was it hard doing that tour?
DH: Well, the tour for me was very hard. For personal reasons, the tour was very hard for me. I wasn’t in a good place on that tour. I had fun and it was a great experience and I loved that I went, but it was a very hard thing for me to do and a lot of the reason that when I came home I made the decision that I couldn’t do the band anymore. I’m not gonna put it all on me. It was a decision that was made by me and Paul, but a very big part of the reason that we decided to break up was because of me. But being in Japan and the experience of it, especially with Down to Nothing, it was hard at the time, but at the same time it was a great experience and I had a lot of fun.
MF: Awhile back , there were some rumors that you guys were going to break up, but then your band addressed the rumors and said you weren’t going to be breaking up and you would be sticking around to put out a full length yourselves. Then you guys obviously did just announce you were breaking up. What was going on there? Did you guys have plans to break up originally?
DH: No, we never had plans to break up originally. Basically, everyone thought we were breaking up because we decided that we had been touring for so long and Paul had personal shit that he needed to deal with. He was unable to do a few tours, a few important tours. He was unable to come along with us when we were supposed to do that Sick of It All/ Madball tour, which luckily Down to Nothing did and they did way better than we would have. And then he was unable to do Europe with us last time, and that was getting kind of hard for us to handle. But we didn’t want to break up. Oh, and another reason was that Andy moved. We lost our drummer, so it kind of seemed like that would be the logical step, but in a lot of ways, we were not perfectly happy with our last record Disconnecting. We weren’t happy with the way Revelation did it, we weren’t happy with our relationship with Revelation. Bob Shedd, the A&R guy there, had left Revelation. So we said ‘Fuck it. We’re not going to be on Revelation anymore,’ and we chose to opt out of our contract. We had a clause in our contract that said that if Bob Shedd leaves, we’re gone - no matter what, no matter if we’re optioned for another, no matter if you want us to do another record - we’re done. We’re out of here. And we used that option and decided to leave. Then around that time that happened people were just assuming that we got dropped from Rev and that we were going to break up. That wasn’t the case at all. We decided that we were just going to put it out ourselves and that we would get distribution for it. That shouldn’t be a problem, we would pay for it, I’d pay for it, because I knew I would mostly make my money back on it. So the plan was always to write that record. And the record is actually written. Musically, the record’s written. Paul has it and I have a CD of it. It’s not professionally recorded, but I have the demo tracks of it. From start to finish, the record’s written. It was always planned that we were going to put it out.
MF: Do you think that will ever see the light of day, like if you release a discography or anything like that. Maybe demo tracks at the end?
DH: Oh no, we would have to record it and I would have to do lyrics. The original plan was that I was going to write lyrics for it when I was in the hospital and I was supposed to write lyrics for it when I was in Japan. The entire point of the record was to be a brighter record, a more positive record. I’m not saying positive like The First Step , ‘We’re all together, we love each other, life’s great’ type of record, but if you read the lyrics to Disconnecting, a lot of them are very depressing and the idea of the next record was to maybe, kind of lighten up a little bit, maybe have a little hope. And I wasn’t in a place at the time that I could write those lyrics. And that would be yet another of the many reasons that we weren’t able to finish that record.
MF: For sure. I can only imagine. If you were having some personal problems, why would you be able to write a record that’s really positive, that would’ve been too forced?
DH: It would have absolutely been forced. One thing that I will stand by with Disconnecting, is that the lyrics to Disconnecting, I mean, minus a few songs, there’s some shit songs on that record. I’m not gonna lie. But the good songs on that record, the lyrics to those songs are deep from within. How do I put it? They’re fucking honest is what I mean to say. They’re honest and they’re exactly where I was when I was writing them. If we did another record where we were trying to do something different, it wouldn’t have been from where I was at. I just couldn’t do it.
MF: I had a question about your clause when Bob was leaving Revelation. Why did you guys put that in there? Was Rev such a bad place to be at that point? Was it such a bad label without him?
DH: Yes…(Long pause) Okay, honestly, there’s some people there that I do enjoy as people, there really are, but the way the label was run, it was not run like a label that I would want to be a part of. Bob seemed to be the only person that had a good head on his shoulders as far as hardcore bands went. Without Bob being there to make it work and trying to get what we wanted done and have our record turn out the way we wanted it to turn out, it could not have happened. That’s why when we were writing it, and we knew that going into it, that’s why we put the clause on the contract. It’s because we knew that if Bob wasn’t going to be there, there was no way, no way it would work.
MF: Well that’s good you guys could look into the future a little bit. You at least realized that. Give me some examples of what you would picture a label you would want to be on to do for the band.
DH: They wasted a lot of money on advertising that was pointless. No one reading fucking AMP is gonna see a fucking ad, a quarter page ad for Sinking Ships ‘Disconnecting’ and go ‘Oh, I’m gonna buy that.’ Or, for instance, right now, obviously one of the best promotions that you can possibly do is to hype a fucking record up on the internet. Use the internet as a tool because every fucking hardcore kid is on there. The hardcore scene is no longer kids at fucking shows, it’s kids on the internet, that’s just the way it is. But they couldn’t even get an intern to fucking hype that shit up on the internet. But there were a tons of things – stickers, mailers- the promotion was all off. But it wasn’t just all that, we ran into a lot of problems when it came to street dates. We weren’t able to get records on time for tour because of street dates. And the records we got charged a little too much for. And they didn’t come in time. Revelation, as a label, treated it far more like a business than it was a hardcore label. Revelation was far more concerned with its distribution, because that’s where they made all their money. That’s where they make all their money. They are a distribution center that happens to put out records. Looking to a record label right now, there’s not a lot that a hardcore label can do besides be psyched on the bands that they have on their label, give a shit about the bands they have on their label and do everything that they can to make sure that the bands they have on their label are successful. Revelation Records didn’t give a fuck about us, the majority of the people. Here’s a little anecdote right here about one of the decisions for me that made it definite in my mind that I’m done with this label. Sound and Fury last year we released our Ten 7 inch. Right where our merch booth was set up was the Revelation Records booth where they had their distro and everything like that. I set out my Ten 7 inches. The guys running the booth over there, they work at Revelation Records, they are in the office every day, they fucking work there. One of those dudes walked over, looked down and said, ‘You guys put out a new 7 inch?’ And he works at the fucking label. Nice guy, I have nothing against him, but the fact that he had no idea we had even put out a 7 inch, that’s bullshit. If you’re on a label that doesn’t even care about you, then why be on that fucking label? We had always talked about how we were going to put out the next record ourselves and how if we wanted to go to another label, regardless of its size, that wasn’t what mattered, what mattered was that it had to be a label that actually was psyched to have us on it and wanted us to succeed and wanted to do everything they could to help us out and just be overall happy that we were on their label. To us, it seemed like Revelation thought they were doing us a favor by putting out our record.
MF: Well then I guess I’m just wondering how you feel about, well I can’t really call it a trend, but bands like Trash Talk that are leaving a label like Malfunction and Deathwish who could do a lot of things for them and just doing it themselves. How do you feel about that?
DH: I back it. I back it completely. I think that’s kind of the way that a lot of bands are doing it right now. Seriously, as far as hardcore goes, if you have enough money and if you can afford it through credit cards or whatever…like for us, that’s what we did… really, if you can afford it, why the fuck not? Especially for a band like Trash Talk that’s on Malfunction, why the fuck not just do it yourself? That’s how they did it 10, 15 years ago. These big labels right now, what can they do for a mid-sized hardcore band right now? Deathwish can do a lot of fucking things for big bands and bands that want to be tour… not to say that Trash Talk doesn’t want to be on tour all the time, they’ve got their shit together… but I’m saying if you have a band who wants to make it and if you have a band that want to fucking be able to break through and get on those big tour and get well known, I don’t even know what I’m saying right now. I’m trying to verbalize it. What I’m trying to say is that there are certain bands that need to be on that kind of a label, then there are other bands that there’s no fucking reason that they can’t just do it themselves and have the same amount of success. For us, personally, damn near everything we did, we did ourselves and we did just fine. We booked every one of our tours, minus Europe because we’re not that talented. It seems that everything we did, minus that fucking Revelation Record ‘Disconnecting’, we did it ourselves. So why the fuck not just put out a record ourselves? And it’s not like we couldn’t find distribution for it, it’s gonna get into all the same stores that if Rev did it. So why not? Then we have the freedom to do whatever we want with the record. If we want to do a fucking gatefold with fucking cut outs and screen prints and if we want to do some fucking fucked up ass vinyl and if we want to do an album that’s one sided and it we want to do 8 inches that are in the shape of fucking penises, whatever. Fuck it, we could do it because we’re doing it ourselves.
(Knocking on the door)
MF: Hey Danny, could you hold on a minute. My neighbor’s knocking on my door.
DH: Okay, this is a fucked up interview. This better be in the interview.
(Kevin answers the door)
Neighbor lady: Here’s some chocolates.
MF: Oh, thank you.
NL: Take care.
(Back on the phone)
MF: My neighbor just gave me some chocolates.
DH: That’s nice. This is all going in the interview by the way.
MF: Well I guess we kind of switched things up a little bit. I’ll just bring things in a different direction. Do you personally look at hardcore any different after going on tour and being in a fairly popular band?
DH: I wouldn’t go as far as saying fairly popular. But do I look at hardcore any differently? If I do look at hardcore differently in any way it’s not the fact that I’ve toured like I did, it’s the fact that I’m older than I was when I first got into hardcore. Not to say that I don’t respect hardcore as much as I did, not to say I don’t like hardcore as much as I did. Being on tour, you do see a hell of a lot more bands and you do see some really good bands and you do some really fucking terrible bands. But it hasn’t changed my view of it too much, I’ve just gotten older and my musical preference and my musical taste has broadened and I’m not so closed minded to other music. So I don’t exactly listen to as much hardcore as I used to, but that’s not because I don’t like it anymore. It’s because I’ve found other things that I appreciate as well. You can’t only listen to hardcore when you like other stuff.
MF: I can kind of picture it, but just give me a picture of what it was like being in the van with your band. How was the dynamic on the road?
DH: On the road it depended. Roger was annoying as fuck. Roger is the kind of person that reads every sign that passes by and talks in stupid fucking voices. He will see a fucking sign that says PetSmart and says, “Is it Pets Mart or is it Pet Smart? I don’t know.” And you’re sitting in a van with him like that and you’re like, “Really, Roger? Did you need to say that?” Everything that he fucking thinks about he vocalizes and he’s fucking obnoxious. Collin? Collin doesn’t fuckin’ talk usually. He hangs out in the back or he drives and he just chills. He just chills, he’s whatever. He’s not super psyched to be on tour usually, but he doesn’t hate it, he’s just there. Andy was always a blast. He always played, if we had a tour manager, he was the guy. He was the one dealing.. if we actually got paid.. he was the one dealing with it. When we were in the van he would usually sit in the passenger seat, that was the front shotgun seat, which was his seat, which was great because it was the most uncomfortable seat and he would just throw on his headphones. He would listen to mostly Queens of the Stone Age or maybe Shipwreck. Paul was Paul. Paul was the same dude he always is, he would listen to weird music, he would fucking…I don’t know. I can’t really describe Paul right now. He was just you know, a dude in a van and I was just a dude in a van. We talked and we hung out and sometimes on late nights we would sit and be driving somewhere in the Midwest with the sun coming up and we would have some deep fucking conversations about some silly ass shit that doesn’t matter. As far as anyone fighting or anyone not getting along, that was never the case. I mean, me and Paul got into it a few times over some silly shit to where we would have to pull off to the side of the road and one of us would have to fucking go walk off. But that’s the way it’s going to be with any band, you’re always going to have conflict. But for the most part we all got along really well and there were never a lot of issues.
MF: Well since we’re talking about the band and how it was, I was just kind of wondering if there were any goals with the band that you didn’t reach or was it all pretty much achieved?
DH: No, there’s definitely goals that I really wanted. I mean, as far as band size goes, I’m very happy with the reactions we got and how far we went and the amount of kids that liked us. We never set out to be a band like Have Heart or a band like fucking Ceremony. We got through a lot of really cool shit. We never got to go to Australia, that breaks my heart. I always, always wanted to go to Australia. We never got to go to South America, which few bands do, but we had contacts and Andy was slowly trying to get it out there. One of the plans with us releasing our own record was we were going to license the fuck out of it and just get every single place we could get to license it and put it out. That’s the best way to get it out there. That’s how we got to Japan. We let Alliance Trax throw on a couple songs. We always planned to go to Alaska, but it never panned it. We always planned on playing every single state, except for maybe Hawaii, because seriously, who plays Hawaii? You just can’t do it. Other than that, I’m pretty happy with how far we got and how much we did and the effort we put in. I don’t think it was any lack of effort that kept those goals from getting accomplished.
MF: How about the progression of the sound? I mean, the demo was pretty straight forward with some short songs then the songs got a little bit longer and more bummed out toward the end. Are you happy with the way that ended with the last EP?
DH: No, no, not at all. If you want to go over the progression, you’ve got the demo where Paul’s obviously influenced by bands like In My Eyes, and I’ll be honest, Paul wrote half those lyrics. I only wrote half of those. They weren’t super depressed they were just hardcore songs. Hardcore songs can be sad at times, but they weren’t super bumming and super down. Meridian, which was our first real 7 inch…
MF: Run for Cover Records.
DH: Run for Cover Records, Jeff Kazzazza (sp?) - douchebag. Jeff Idiot is his name actually, not douchebag. Jeff Idiot… a lot of problems with that record. The sound there, Paul got a little influenced by Staygold, obviously because he was in Staygold, whether they say it or not, he was. So we had a couple songs like that. I was in a different spot when I wrote the lyrics for that so it started to get a little more depressing. Then we had Disconnecting which is a very depressing record and is actually a record that, well…we’re getting ready to play our last shows, we have our last Seattle show coming up at Rain Fest next weekend and I’m going back and reading those lyrics and making sure I know them all, and at this point a lot of those lyrics are hard for me to read. A lot of them…well, I was in a place and I was in a time that, well, you know…It’s hard for me to go back and read them. We’re still going to play those songs and it’ll still be fine, but it was from a different, different, different place. Then the last two 7 inches we did kind of switched gears as it lyrically went and I tried to have my songs mean a little bit more and have a little bit more social leaning, not so introverted. They are still very personal songs in the ay that I feel about certain things, but I tried to kind of do that maybe just a little bit. Then there’s a 7 inch that no one’s heard and no one’s ever going to hear.
MF: I got it.
DH: You have that 7 inch?
MF: The one with the Whiskeytown cover?
DH: Yeah, the one with the Whiskeytown cover.
MF: It sounds like NOFX.
DH: That’s a fucking weird comparison. I don’t think it sounds like NOFX at all.
MF: Your voice sounds like Fat Mike.
DH: That sucks and you’re crazy.
MF: (Laughs hysterically)
DH: That song was written about a very very very very very bad bad bad bad bad bad time, bad time, as well as the very last song we recorded. Both of them were about the same thing. I had a life changing event that happened and that’s what those songs are about. Pretty much that whole long schpeel that if anyone ever reads this, people are gonna pass straight to it, feel free to skip all that and know that our lyrics got more depressing the more depressed that I got as a person and it ended with us recording our very last song ‘Out of Touch’ which has some very deep meaning that we don’t need to get into to. Then that other song Bee Honda that’s on that 7 inch, we wrote that thing fucking years ago and just re-recorded it because we needed another song.
MF: Brian Honda?
DH: No, Bee Honda.
MF: Was that a reference to Brian Honda?
D: It may have been, it may not have been. Who knows? Who knows what it is?
MF: I guess going into some potentially awkward and random questions… Did it bug you at all being compared to Champion because of your brother? If so, did your opinion change over time?
DH: No, I always knew it was going to be “Oh, that’s the singer from Champion’s little brother’s band.” But dude, hey, I was going to Champion shows since they started. I knew that if I started a band that’s the way it was always going to be. Champion was one of the most influential hardcore bands of the last ten years, fuck what anyone else says. They did so much and they did so much for so many people and I’m so fucking proud of them. So if anyone ever came up to me and said anything about “Oh, you’re the singer of Champion’s little brother,” that never bothered me, not once. I’m fucking proud of my brother and his accomplishments. I thought it was funny that for a time there, people tried to make fun of me for it and they thought it was an insult. And by no means is it an insult. But when I would read reviews and it would say that our music sound like Champion Jr., I would just laugh because if you really think that our songs sound anything like Champion you obviously don’t really listen to a lot of hardcore and you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. We sounded nothing like Champion. The vocals might have been a little similar, but not really. I sing like a fucking banshee, I have such a loud, obnoxious voice that we don’t sound anything like that shit. But it doesn’t bother me.
MF: Well then obviously, both you and your brother were both singers of what I think are prominent hardcore bands. Have your parents always been supportive of this?
DH: I guess. I mean, you know…neither of my parents have ever seen me play. I think the first time my dad saw Jim play was the last show. They’ve been supportive of it, they’ve thought it was cool, but it was never like super, super supportive, not like I’ve seen and come into contact with bands where their parents will buy them a van and buy them equipment and be like, “You’re gonna make it and this is gonna be great.” These bands whose parents will totally help them out and support them financially, nothing like that with us. It’s just kind of like, “Oh, that’s what you’re doing, that’s cool.”
MF: This is weird question and it might be also awkward. But it seems like there’s some bands that always get an amazing reaction at home. But Sinking Ships have always been hit and miss in Seattle. Why do you think that was?
DH: Fuck hit and miss. We did good when we had a demo out, but once Meridian came out and we had a 7 inch, no one gave a fuck about it anymore. Seattle stopped giving a shit. I think some of the reason was that we wanted to be a real hardcore band and we wanted to tour and we wanted to get out there, so we would go on tour for a few months and we would come home and play a show and a lot of the kids would forget about us. Then especially, a lot of the kids who liked us, they just stopped coming around. Then Seattle got on a fucking kick where everyone wanted to be fucking 80’s old school thrash and no one wanted to fucking listen to some cheesy ass melodic hardcore band. They all wanted their shit to sound fucking fast and thrashy or, especially now, heavy and ignorant. And hey, that’s great, that’s Seattle’s vibe, that’s fucking cool for them. We accepted a long time ago that Seattle was never going to be one of those places where we were gonna get a good reaction. For instance, Down to Nothing, I like bringing them up because they’re one of my favorite hardcore bands and I love those guys to death. Richmond, Down to Nothing, that’s some of the craziest shows you’ll ever see. They have such a fucking loyal fan base there. So many friends, it’s fucking amazing. Seeing Have Heart in Boston is just fucking insane. And, you know, it used to upset us a little bit that we didn’t have that and we didn’t understand, but we kind of just stopped giving a shit. Because who really fucking cares? So what? A lot of kids in Seattle either don’t know who we are or don’t give a fuck. For instance, at one of the last Seattle shows we played, that Winter Ball we played, we played early and I looked around and we didn’t get a very good reaction. For the amount of kids that were there, the reaction was not that great and we knew it wasn’t going to be that great. But the funny thing I noticed was that probably 40 percent of the crowd were kids I had never seen in my entire life. It’s a new group of kids and a lot of those kids, it was probably the first time they had ever seen us. So you know, whatever, it’s not that big of a deal. We get it. We understand it. We’re not bitter about it. We weren’t going to play a last show in Seattle. It wasn’t going to happen. The only reason, and I mean this, for me personally, the only reason we’re playing a last show in Seattle at Rain Fest is because Andy Rice is going to be there and he wants to do it. And it would be nice to play a last show where Andy gets to fucking play. I guess that’s not the real reason because I can think off the top of my head 10 to 15 kids that are my friends that would like to see us one last time. It would be kind of lame to not let them see us one last time. But am I expecting it to be a fucking, like, last show like the Champion last show or The Answer’s last show? No. I’m not expecting anything. I’m expecting the same group of kids that fucking went off for us every time we played, there was probably 10 to 15 of them, I expect them to be there going off and we’re going to have fun and I’m not expecting anything more.
MF: I know it’s definitely one of the sets I’m looking the most forward to this weekend. Of course I’ll definitely be at Sound and Fury too.
DH: Oh, well good. Have you seen on the Sound and Fury Myspace they have all these wallpapers?
MF: Yeah, I downloaded it and it was really funny because I downloaded it and then I was just playing on my computer and made my browser smaller and saw that I’m actually in the picture.
DH: Dude, you’re right there, you’re getting ready to stage dive. I was so fucking psyched on that. That picture is… that picture is fucking cool. I love that picture. But I like it even more because it’s like, “Oh hey, there’s Kevin Diers right there, that’s fucking cool.”
MF: Since you grew up in the northwest hardcore scene, you’ve been around for awhile, it was probably a lot smaller when you started going to shows. Is it weird for you to see that the northwest even has its own three day hardcore festival now?
DH: I don’t know how that’s happening. I’m sorry, I don’t get it. I’m not even thinking about it because I’m just glad that I have no part of it. The northwest having a three day hardcore fest, to me, that’s such a polar concept that I can’t even wrap my head around it. I don’t even know. The hardcore scene here is…I don’t know. It’s hard for me to understand that. I went to ON’s first show, the Legitimate Brocase, the best bands in Seattle right now, by far, hands down- Get the Most, Circles, Keep it Clear and ON- four of the best hardcore bands in Seattle, the place was crowded. I don’t know exactly how many people were there, maybe 50, 60. To me, that’s the Seattle hardcore scene, that’s just what I see. I don’t understand how there’s going to be a three-day fest. I don’t know where these people are.
MF: For example though, that same night there was a show going on…well, given it was a crap metal core show, but there was a show going on at Studio 7 and there was a show at Viaduct. When all those shows combine it could be a ton of people. There are people from Eastern Washington and these people from different pockets of the Northwest that will come out for a big fest.
DH: It’s still just different for me because I do remember a time where you would go to a show and if there was fucking 50 kids there it would be the biggest shows you’d seen in a long time. Minus the RCKNDY shows where Trial and Hatebreed would play, and then there would be a ton of fucking people. But you’re right, people come out of the woodwork and the hardcore scene is far bigger than I realize it is and it’s probably because I was on tour for so long and I didn’t see it grow. Now it’s a lot bigger than it was.
MF: I was actually wondering how much of an impact growing up in the somewhat dingy suburb has had on the lyrics you write?
DH: Ummm, well it had a lot of impact on writing the song Auburn, but as far as writing a lot of my other lyrics…I mean obviously they would have some impact because where you grow up in your childhood it forms the person who you are, it really does. So the person that I am has something to do with where I grew up. But a lot of my lyrics were situational due to things that had happened recently in my life that didn’t have a lot to do with where I was living, but more to what mental state I was in. Maybe what city I was living in had some effect on that, but it’s hard to say how much.
MF: Tell me a little bit more about when you first started getting into hardcore. What was your first memory of a show?
D: Honestly, my first memory, and I know I had been to quite a few shows before this because I would get drug along with…well, kind of. My brother would rarely bring me along to shows. I don’t think he liked his little brother tagging along, he might say differently, but that’s the impression that I got. There was another group of kids from Auburn that were older that were my brothers friends that would bring me along. But to be perfectly honest, the first memory…and I do have a shit memory, so it’s hard for me to remember…but the first big hardcore show that I remember, like clearly remember was Misfits and Sick of It All and somebody else important, but I don’t know who the fuck it was. And like I said, I know there was probably a full year of shows I went to before that, like random little Left with Nothing shows or something. Or Last Man Standing or Everything Went Black or something like that. But as far as the first one I have a vivid memory of was seeing Sick of It All at that show which was kind of a big deal for me. Not the Misfits though, they Misfits fucking sucked.
MF: How old were you at that point?
DH: Fuck. That was probably 98, so….however old I am now minus a few years.
MF: How was the hardcore scene around where you were living compared to now where you can go to high school and see a crap load of people that are straight edge or into hardcore?
DH: It was kind of cool, actually, because Auburn had a few kids. Freshman year of high school there was Little Eric, who’s in the other room and got pissed off at me for doing this interview because we’re trying to watch Family Guy and he’s sulking in his room. Little Eric, he came around and he started going to shows, like 9th-10th grade or so. Then Collin, who I’ve known for years, and is the bass player for Sinking Ships and then there was a few other kids. There was a group that was a few years older than me, probably like three or four punk kids that would go to the shows, so I had a ride. There was a good amount, maybe five or so, kids in my high school that actually knew what the fuck hardcore was and were at least moderately into it.
MF: This is kind of a weird question coming from me. I know I had a role in this, but you grew up in Auburn, you listened to KGRG, you heard the ska bands, you heard the pop punk bands on it. Was it weird when you heard your band played on KGRG?
DH: Yeah, it was. I thought it was a little weird. I though it was pretty cool. I was pretty into it. I don’t really listen to KGRG too much, just because it’s way too much ska and way too much bad, bad music and way too much Ruckus, but whatever. It’s a cool radio station. It was really weird the first time I heard it. We were probably at work and my boss was listening to it and one of our songs came on and I was like, “Oh, interesting, we’re getting played on the radio. That’s fucking weird.”
MF: What are you guys’ future plans after the band?
DH: Future plans… I’ll see if I can go through what we’ve got going on. Nasty sounds like he’s going to becoming an adult. Andy is out in Boston, I don’t know if he’s going to start working for a booking agency. I, personally think he’s miserable and within a year he’ll move back, but I don’t know, he’s just doing his fucking thing. Me and Paul are working together. He’s been talking about starting up in school again or something, maybe something else. I know he’s got a couple bands he’s going to be starting up, nothing like Sinking Ships. I don’t even know, I don’t talk to Paul that much anymore so I don’t really know what they’re going to sound like. I know a couple of them, or at least one of them, he’s working with Funds from Shook Ones. Roger, it sounds like he’s getting ready to wife-up and move down to New Mexico where his girlfriend lives. I’ve got two bands I’m trying to start right now. One of them looks like it’s not gonna happen. It was supposed to be a post-punk band with Gabe from down here. That’s probably not gonna happen. But the past couple days me and Kelly from Shook Ones have been talking pretty seriously about getting something going. So we’re gonna work on that. I really, really, really wanna get something going right away. Nothing serious, nothing super “let’s jump in the van and fucking do this,” but something where I can actually have an outlet again to write a lot of the shit I need to write that I couldn’t write for Sinking Ships because it wasn’t right. There’s a lot of stuff I need, need to write. I need the band where I can do that and not make it sound real fucking weird.
MF: Do you think it will be a hardcore band?
DH: No. It’s not going to be a hardcore band. I’m telling you right now, it’s not. There’s no way. I’m not going to do another hardcore band. I did a hardcore band for four years it’s time for me to try something different.
MF: Do you know what kind of sound you guys want to go for or is it just kind of up in the air?
DH: It’s pretty much up in the air. We did a little bit, just a little bit of experimenting with my voice, through recording, to see exactly where it’s at. I’m not really looking to sing, sing, I’m just looking to do a little more with my voice than I did with Sinking Ships. I’m sure I don’t have pitch, so I’m sure it’s going to sound like hell, but whatever. We’ll probably just play a few shows, no one’s going to hear it, who gives a shit? We’re going to see how it goes. Kelly’s going to write a few songs. We don’t even have a drummer, so he’s going to write some songs and I’m going to check ‘em out and if we’re into it, then we’ll find somebody to throw some drum tracks on it and I’ll do some vocals and we’ll have something.
MF: Well I know you went to school for, well I don’t know if this is the major, but you studied a lot of film stuff. Is there any possibility of doing anything there? Maybe, maybe a Moshbot 2?
DH: Never gonna happen. That shit’s fucking dumb. That shit’s embarrassing and thank God that no one has it. No, I’m not really interested in it. For awhile there, there were some plans for the last year or so that I would be going back to school, but due to a lot of stuff that’s happened lately, I’m definitely re-evalutating what the fuck I’m going to do with my life. I mean, fuck, who knows? It’s up in the air. I just don’t know. I’ve got a steady job and a place to live for the time being and I’m gonna try to put my life back together and when I’m in a better place, I will start figuring out what’s next.
MF: As far as things that really stick out to you, what do you think you will remember as the best show Sinking Ships has played?
DH: Um, I can’t say the best show, but a lot of the Chain Reaction shows in Anaheim California were some of the coolest fucking shows I’ve ever played, because honestly those were some of the best reactions we’ve ever gotten. The last show of our last European tour was a fucking amazing show. I can’t remember the name of the town, it was in Germany. That show was just fucking retarded. The first and the last shows of that tour with Ruiner, those right there were fucking amazing shows. That and playing in Warsaw, that was a cool show. I just gave you like four shows, but those are the shows that are going to probably stay with me the most. I mean, clearly there were some important shows we got to play, like we played Staygold’s last show and we played Champion’s last show and stuff like that. But really, those mean a lot to me, but the one’s I said earlier I think mean a little more.
MF: You said you’ll remember the shows in Southern California. Last year when I went to Sound and Fury I was so amazed by the reaction you got in Southern California compared to Seattle. Is that kind of one of the reasons you guys are playing your last show in Southern California at Sound and Fury?
DH: No. It just happens to be after Rain Fest and it just happened that Andy is going to be there. Dead serious. That is the reason why Sound and Fury is going to be our last, last show, is because Andy is going to be there with Meltdown and I know me and Paul were going to go anyways just because Bob Shedd is one of the three dudes that runs that fest and he has helped us out more than any person has helped us out. It would be cool to play his fest one last time. We wouldn’t have done it if Andy wouldn’t have been there. But shit, he’s already going to be there, so why the fuck not?
MF: When it’s all said and done, what do you want your band to be remembered as?
DH: Honestly, I just want somebody to remember that we were a band. Negative, positive, I don’t give a fuck. Years down the road, I would like people to actually go ‘Sinking Ships? Oh yea, that was a hardcore band.’ I would be happy with that. That’s it. If they liked us, great. If we wrote lyrics that inspired them, great. If kids found the connection with my deeply personal lyrics and they were able to somehow apply them to their lives, that is amazing and that makes me feel like I actually did something good. But really, if people just fucking remember that we were a band. That would make me the happiest.
MF: Any last words?
D: Fuck Eric Wallace.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
PAIN FEST
HOLY BALLS RAIN FEST WAS OFF THE HOOK
Ian and I drove up to Seattle to print the first batch of Issue 1 somewhere near 10:30 a.m Saturday morning.
We copied, layed-out, folded and stapled for a good 7 hours and showed up to Rain Fest with approximately 190 copies of the zine (there were 10 that got jammed in the copy machines). We thought it would take all day to pass the zines out but in no more than 15 minutes we were down to 3 zines each. As I walked around inside and outside the Viaduct I saw people reading it, and damn, it may sound corny, but that was a great feeling.
Did everyone get a zine? If so, what do you think?
I will be posting some exclusive content in the next couple days. For now, though, it's time to start working on my final research paper of my college career. Weeeeiiiiirddd.
BEST BANDS AT RAIN FEST (in no particular order)
Owen Hart
Black Breath
Pressvre
Sinking Ships
Trash Talk
Hostage Calm
Barricade
What were your favorites?
Ian and I drove up to Seattle to print the first batch of Issue 1 somewhere near 10:30 a.m Saturday morning.
We copied, layed-out, folded and stapled for a good 7 hours and showed up to Rain Fest with approximately 190 copies of the zine (there were 10 that got jammed in the copy machines). We thought it would take all day to pass the zines out but in no more than 15 minutes we were down to 3 zines each. As I walked around inside and outside the Viaduct I saw people reading it, and damn, it may sound corny, but that was a great feeling.
Did everyone get a zine? If so, what do you think?
I will be posting some exclusive content in the next couple days. For now, though, it's time to start working on my final research paper of my college career. Weeeeiiiiirddd.
BEST BANDS AT RAIN FEST (in no particular order)
Owen Hart
Black Breath
Pressvre
Sinking Ships
Trash Talk
Hostage Calm
Barricade
What were your favorites?
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The new dope.
Maintain Fanzine Issue #1 - out this weekend. Get siked! I know I am. It's been a long while in the making, but finally it looks like it will be seeing the light of the day. I have no clue how many copies we will be printing off for this first issue. I'm thinking somewhere around 100-200, we will see. I still have a bunch of crap to do with it. The layout isn't finished yet, there's a bunch of mistakes in my writing and yea...dumb stuff like that. Ian is coming up to Bellingham tomorrow night to help me finish it and bring it to the printer. I still haven't decided if I will be handing it out for free or charging like $1 or something for it. I guess that depends on if we end up putting a lot of money into the first run of the issue. If we can find a sweet, sketchy way of printing these off for free, I see no reason to charge people for them. But yea, $1 isn't much. Oh well, we'll see.
Rain Fest this weekend is going to be off the fugging chain. Big ups to Pressvre and Sinking Ships.
Oh yea, I should probably get into the content of the first issue, huh?
Interviews:
Sinking Ships- Is this the last SS interview? Who knows. Danny has some interesting stuff to say. The interview had to be cut down for space requirements, but I will be posting the entire transcript on this blog in the next couple days.
Blacklisted- I interviewed George Hirsch right before the new record was set to drop and he is most definitely a great dude to interview. I got a lot more stoked on his band just by talking to him. Dude's all about the blogging.
Henry Rollins- I did this interview in 2006? I think. It originally aired on my radio show Dead Air. Rollins is intense and I felt like a 13-year-old fanboy when I asked him questions.
Essays:
Iraq War: A couple of my friends, Tom and Toby, wrote essays about their time in Iraq. With the distance that American mainstream media keeps from the war it's so easy to not think about. I wanted to give everyone a look at what the war is like from the perspective of a couple hardcore kids. You might not agree with their views or the war, but I'm so thankful these dudes wrote the essays for me.
A journey to Marshalltown and back: My homie Ian flew to Marshalltown, Iowa for Modern Life is War's last show a couple weekends back.Here's a full report. Great writing here.
+ a ton more (basically meaning a bunch of random reviews, Q&A's and articles)
Rain Fest this weekend is going to be off the fugging chain. Big ups to Pressvre and Sinking Ships.
Oh yea, I should probably get into the content of the first issue, huh?
Interviews:
Sinking Ships- Is this the last SS interview? Who knows. Danny has some interesting stuff to say. The interview had to be cut down for space requirements, but I will be posting the entire transcript on this blog in the next couple days.
Blacklisted- I interviewed George Hirsch right before the new record was set to drop and he is most definitely a great dude to interview. I got a lot more stoked on his band just by talking to him. Dude's all about the blogging.
Henry Rollins- I did this interview in 2006? I think. It originally aired on my radio show Dead Air. Rollins is intense and I felt like a 13-year-old fanboy when I asked him questions.
Essays:
Iraq War: A couple of my friends, Tom and Toby, wrote essays about their time in Iraq. With the distance that American mainstream media keeps from the war it's so easy to not think about. I wanted to give everyone a look at what the war is like from the perspective of a couple hardcore kids. You might not agree with their views or the war, but I'm so thankful these dudes wrote the essays for me.
A journey to Marshalltown and back: My homie Ian flew to Marshalltown, Iowa for Modern Life is War's last show a couple weekends back.Here's a full report. Great writing here.
+ a ton more (basically meaning a bunch of random reviews, Q&A's and articles)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)