Statement from Pete from 25th October 2011 The interview was done by me and me alone, Barry played no part. There is only one paragraph they see to have a problem with is the answer on the 1st question. They like to misquote it quite a bit. I am clearly talking about bad people here, the people who come to Britain to abuse it, commit crime in it or wage Jihad on it, I am clearly not talking about immigrants per se, immigrants who want to come here, work hard and integrate, only a complete moron would read the sentence and come to that conclusion... surely, or someone with an agenda, like a red neo-fascist who believes anyone with such an opinion is scum, an evil rascist, but all I think I've said here is what ninety nine percent of the country are thinking whatever their colour or creed. Pete
1. So first question is classic one, so introduce your
band, members, work, age, hobbies and tell us how do you met each other?
Well
Balefire is just me and Barry with me on Bass and lead vocal, Barry on guitars,
drums, keyboards and second vocals. We're both in the building game and
that's how we met, on a house renovation job. It was a really strange
moment finding out he was Barry from Infa Riot, he couldn't believe I was in an
Oi! band! He hadn't come across anyone who knew what Oi! was for
years! You could say he's been in the wilderness!
Our main
hobby these days is just trying to survive in 2010 Britain totally fucked up
and destroyed by thirteen years of socialism and an immigration policy that
threw open the floodgates to any piece of shit who want to come here and kill
our way of life! Barry is fighting off the bailiffs most days and I aint
doing much better! Life is a fucking struggle right now.
2. When and why come decision to start a band and why
name Balefire? I know that you played in Retaliator and Barry used to play in
Infa Riot...do you play in any other projects beside Balefire?
We decided
we would get together for a bit of a jam almost immediately, Barry was most
insistent and I thought why not. Then I started to write some songs that
might suite how it was sounding and then we had enough material to be getting
on with something. We started to record it piecemeal, bit by bit whenever
we could spare the time. It was a long slow process but it started to
take shape. It was gonna be a full-length album but we ran out of time, I
moved away from the area (170 miles away), so we left it as a mini-album.
We called it 'On The Road To Redemption' because we both really felt we had
something to prove, if not to the scene, then to ourselves, in our own eyes we
had to redeem ourselves. Barry had always felt Infa Riot ultimately
failed, he wanted to have free reign to record something completely organic and
creative. His songs for Infa Riot always came out different to how he
wanted due to the input of others in the band and their limited musical
capabilities. This new thing would also show people how far he's progressed
and grown as a musician. As for me, well I'd left Retaliator under a bit
of a cloud and felt burnt out after working on our concept album for so long, I
just needed to get writing again to prove I could still do it. We called
the band 'Balefire', a medieval name for a funeral pyre, because the sound of
the music is quite dark and the name suited the sound, also it's about putting
the past to bed and rising up reborn from the embers! What a load of old
bollocks eh! Oh well, we kinda liked the idea so we stuck with it.
Neither of us is doing anything else right now, but I do have something
planned, but I don't really want to talk about that just yet.
3. You released CD called On the Road to Redemption,
can you describe the recording session? And do you plan to leave Balefire only
as a studio band or do you also think about playing live?
Recording
this album was hard work. Life just kept getting in the way and finding
time was difficult. Writing the songs and working on them was easy, me
and Barry work really well together, but getting the stuff recorded, mixed and
mastered was a nightmare. It is just a ‘project,’ we'll almost certainly
never take it out on the road and I can't really see any further things from
Balefire. We live four hours apart by car and logistically speaking it
would be impossible, not only that, Barry's life is complicated and getting him
to do anything is tricky, getting him to do something specific and soon is
impossible, hence me doing this interview alone! I wanted to do more,
maybe a full album and I know Barry does, but I just can't see it
happening. We'd also need to draft in some band members if we were gonna
do it live and who'd wanna work with us???
4. Both of Balefire members played in live bands
before in 80´s and 90´s so are there any differences between gigs nowadays and
in 80´s 90´s?
Quite a
bit. I used to go to gigs in the 80's and Barry played them and we both
agree it's different now. In Britain there was far more trouble and
police intervention back then, it's a bit calmer now more about the music and
the beer and less about the aggro!
5. Your CD was out on Mother Fuckin´ Sounds...are you
satisfied with that label?
Yeah
absolutely. They've worked real hard, pushed the CD really hard, done their
absolute best for us. Jonesy loves the CD so that helps of course.
The only problem we had was a mix up with the finished pre-press cd. The
one that got pressed was the wrong one, we weren't happy with levels etc so we
went back and remixed and mastered, but the first one got pressed. Oh
well! Shit happens. Such is life. It was our own fault, the label
was pressing us for a deadline and we were taking forever to get it finished so
it was our own fault really.
6. Your sound is completely different then
conventional British Oi!/streetpunk sound, you also use keyboards...what is
your musical inspiration and why did you want to create just an unique sound?
Who is responsible for the lyrics and music?
Yeah I
suppose it is a bit different to the norm. We didn't set out to create a
sound, we didn't try to create a punk or an Oi! album, we just played together,
I wrote the songs and the lyrics which Barry really liked and that's how it
came out, then when the album started to come together we could see it was
taking us somewhere completely different, very rock based punk, which opened up
all kinds of possibilities musically speaking. If a song sounded like it
needed keyboards we thought fuck it, let's stick some keyboards in, it worked
for the 4-Skins on '1984' so why not for us on ‘There’s Something About Her’,
our very own dark tribute to skinhead girls. I pushed for a harder sound than
Barry really wanted but he was really happy with the outcome. I think
it's a pretty dark sounding album, even the upbeat tracks have taken on a dark
undercurrent, but I still think it retains its punk feel. I see it as Skinhead
Rock as I saw Retaliator, it’s rock based punk with my usual lyrics, the same
kind of lyrics I’ve always written for Retaliator, in fact the songs are
written just as I would have written for Retaliator it’s just that Barry’s
input has taken them somewhere completely different which kinda made me nervous
at first, but then I got into it and thought yeah why not do something
completely different just this once. Personally I love the CD, the sound,
the mix is really professional and big, Barry’s a technical wizard in the
studio, the stuff he’s learned over the years is crazy. He’s made the
Balefire sound really deep, you can almost dive into it. Its not gonna be
everyone’s cup of tea but I’m very proud of it, it’s a very grown up piece of
work. If you want “Oi! Oi! You’re a fucking cunt!,” blaring out of your
speakers when you’re driving down the high street go find a two-bob Oi! band,
if you want something a little more refined and technical check it out, you
might just like it.
7. Can you describe the scene in your area? Pubs,
venues, crews and new bands which worth to hear....
There is NO
scene at all where Barry lives in Great Yarmouth and it aint much better where
I live in Hastings, but the scene as a whole aint doing too bad at the moment
in the UK, there’s bands coming through.
8. What about the football thing are you interested in
terraces culture?
I used to
be, BIG TIME, but football is shit now, it’s all big money and too many foreign
players. English football has lost its identity. I aint been to a
game for two years and I don’t really plan to. Football is dead…. Unless
England win the world cup!
9. Do you know anything about Czech republic and scene
here?
Yeah,
Retaliator nearly played a gig there but the police got involved and that was
that. We seem to have had contact with people from the Czech Republic
right from the word go, I think our first, or one of the first interviews
Retaliator did for a fanzine was from the Czech Republic (for the famous Vlad I
think). There’s been some good bands, one of the best in my opinion being
Disdainful of course, their album Hated & Proud is a permanent feature in
my van, great album. Excellent band.
10. Plans for the future?
I have
something in the pipeline but we’ll just have to see how that goes.
Barry? Dunno, maybe we’ll take Balefire a bit further, maybe we won’t,
who knows? The problem is, Barry was really excited to be working again,
releasing something for the first time in many years, but he’s been a bit under
whelmed with the response. The whole world seems to be in the doldrums at
the moment and it’s had an affect on our scene. Just one word of support
on our MySpace page and Barry is a happy bunny again, he expected the response
to be big, but it’s been pretty low key, he aint sure if it’s worth all the
hard work, time and effort and he’s really not sure if he can be bothered to do
it again. I don’t really blame him. It seems that far too many
people in the scene are closed off to the idea that our music has to sound
exactly like Condemned 84 or it aint skinhead music (and then they secretly
listen to Green Day when no one’s about!) In the end, the main reason
Retaliator fell apart was because we were getting tired, sick of getting
little recognition for all the hard graft we were putting in, and once my life
began to get complicated and it became really hard to fit Retaliator into my
life, the writing was on the wall and the end was in sight. If people took
two seconds to give a band a little praise once in a while, a word of support
on their website, it’d make it all worthwhile, let’s face it, none of do it for
the money!! (What fucking money!)
11. Last words....
Cheers for
the interest Peddy and thanks for the interview. Cheers to Jonesy for all
your hard work and support, you are a legend and a diamond! Thanks also
to anyone who has bought the Balefire CD and shown us support. We really
do appreciate it, it’s all we want, just your support.
LONG LIVE
SKINHEAD ROCK!
http://www.myspace.com/balefireredemption
http://www.myspace.com/motherfuckingsounds
All
the best,
Pete