1. Hi so at first please introduce your band, members and tell us how do you know each other?
J: Matt plays bass and sings, Nate plays guitar and sings, Miko plays drums, and I play lead guitar. I met Matt at a bar in town when we were both there watching a soccer game, and he introduced me to Nate. I'd actually met Miko about ten years ago when he tattooed me-we have a lot of mutual friends.
2. When and why came decission to start a band? Some of you used to play in
Aires and Graces and in some HC bands...didy our members still have some side
projects except Noi!se? And can you describe your sound?
J: I wasn't a part of the decision to create the band, that was between Matt, Nate and Miko. By the time Noi!se came around, I wasn't doing anything on the side. Oddly enough, before I knew that Matt was no longer in Aires and Graces, I was going to hit him up and see if he wanted a second guitar, but it all worked out for the best in the end. Matt's song writing skills were already pretty obvious with A&G, and once he moved on to Noi!se, he had a lot heavier guitar sound to go along with what he was putting out. The fact that Nate cranks out a lot of songs also adds its own intensity to the music. I would say that, over all, we're a very Northwestern band-heavy and gritty, but just when you think it's all gloom, the chorus pops through the clouds and picks you up. It's heavy-toned good street rock.
3. You have out 10´´and 7´´ on Contra/Longshot Records...how was the cooperation with the labels, are you satisfied?
J: Contra/Longshot have been great to us. The last time I dealt with a record label was in my Forced Life days, and we basically put out this record on Breakout and never saw any return on it. I don't even think we got a copy of the seven inch. With Contra/Longshot, Ronnie and Mike are great guys, they have great labels, and we have a good working relationship. We usually pay for our own recordings here in Tacoma, then send them off the the label, and reap tons of merch and some of the profit from the tunes, which we then blow on band stuff that we need, like cables and speakers and recording. In the end, everyone's happy, and beyond that, it's really great of these guys to put so much effort into such an obscure genre of music. You really have to love street rock to run labels as productive as those two. I for one would love to pull a Noi!se tour in Germany one of these days.
4. You are planning split 7´´ with The Gestalts, can you tell us something
about it and about the band The Gestalts?
J: We're putting two new tracks on the 7" as far as I know-I believe that they're Reality TV and Coming Storm. I don't know much else beyond that. The Gestalts, of course, are great. They've got good leads and their singer has a rad voice.
5. Matt will also do guest vocals on upcoming Perkele release...how did he
come to this job?
J: Matt's been in contact with those guys for
awhile. He loves them, and who doesn't? They're fucking
amazing. I think they got turned on to some of our stuff and got a kick
out of it, and it just kind of went from there. Our band is very
fortunate in that we know some really amazing people, just through building
relationships down through the years in our other bands and what not.
6. Do you plan regular full length album?
J: Currently, I'm not sure if we have a
"regular" full length in the works. We're going to do a couple
of seven inches, then probably get onto a compilation as well. If we come
out with a full-length, it's more likely to be a record with all of our stuff
on one disc. Personally, though, I would love to sit down as a band, decide
to put out a legitimate full-length, and re-record some of our old stuff to put
on it. But it's all up in the air-we have limited time for monkeying
around in the studio because of our jobs. It's not easy having a band
that's half military and half tattooers.
7. What about the gigs...do you like playing live and it is problem for Oi! band in US to find a place for a gig?
J: We absolutely love playing live. Playing is what we do this for. We love to put out records, and always appreciate it when we gain fans that way, but playing shows is definitely the most fun of anything we do. We've played some horrible shows, but we've played more good shows, and it really doesn't matter, because we're still going to go apeshit, whether it's five hundred or five people. It's not hard at all for an Oi! band to play in the US, but we also live on the west coast. I think that in big city areas, such as the west coast or the east coast, or places with big scenes like Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, etc. you're good to go, but it would probably be hard to book shows in, say, Oklahoma or Wyoming for example. It's all a matter of where you're at. Seattle and Tacoma have good underground music scenes, and there's a lot of mutual support between punk, hardcore, and Oi!/street rock bands.
8. What about the scene in Tacoma city and the area around? Can you tell us
something about bands, pubs, clubs, zines, etc...
J: In Tacoma itself, there really aren't a whole lot of bands in terms of street rock. We've had a handful of bands who we've played with, but most of them were just shitty mall punk bands, and we were opening for hardcore acts, etc. We love playing local, but it's usually with bands from Seattle. I've watched a few bands that we'd be good on a bill with in Tacoma, but this has been since Matt left for Afghanistan, so it's on hold for now. As far as pubs and clubs, Tacoma has taken the pub/bar and made it into an institution. We have so many amazing bars here, it's unreal. The band tends to hang out either at The Red Hot (they do micro brew/craft beer and an entire menu of hot dogs) or Puget Sound Pizza (pretty self explanatory). We've only played one show at The New Frontier, but that's because Matt got deployed. We had a great time playing there. As far as Seattle, we usually play The Galway Arms. They love us, and we love them. We've also played El Corazon and Chop Suey up there as well. Not to up on zines up here, now that everything is on the web.
9. You greet in your thankslist US Army, Navy and Marine Corps... are some of you or your friends soldiers?
J: Matt and I are both soldiers, and I'm pretty sure all of us have veterans in our families. A lot of the band's friends are military as well, from different branches.
10. In Europe we love football (soccer as you say :), do you support some team in some kind of sport (ice hockey, baseball, american football...)?
J: Matt and I love Sounders FC (Seattle's soccer team). I also take in the Seahawks (Seattle's American football team), although they tend to get their asses handed to them every season. I'm a big US Men's National Team supporter too, and I've been known to root for Mexico by default if the US gets kicked out of the cup early-I grew up five minutes from Mexico.
11. Razors in the Night as a Contra Records label band did European tour
this year...are you planning something like that?
J: I think that we would love to do a European tour, but it's difficult to do, because Matt and I are constantly training and deploying to foreign countries, often for 6-12 months at a time, not to mention the fact that Miko and Nate would have to take a break from tattooing, which is a big deal when you hustle as hard as those two do. Still, I don't think any of us is opposed to playing Europe. I, for one, would really like to play in France with Hard Times, and I can't even count all of the bands I want to play with in Germany. And of course you have Control in the UK, and Perkele in Sweden. Touring Europe would be great, but we'd have a lot of financial and logistical planning to take care of before we did that. Additionally, all of us have families, so we have to take the wives and kids into account.
12. Do you know anything about Czech scene?
J: I actually know nothing about the Czech scene! I'll have to look it up. Send me a link.
13. Plans for the future...
J: Plans for the immediate future are to get Matt back safe and sound. In the meantime, Nate and Miko and I will be recording some rough demos of new material. When Matt gets back, I imagine it's just going to be a whilrwind of recording and playing shows. We'll probably coordinate some micro-tours, like play Seattle, Portland, Sacramento and San Francisco or something, or maybe fly out to the east coast for four days and hit Boston and NY. But immediate future is get some more songs recorded and then play some local shows.
14. Last words....
J: Nah, I'm a dick. I don't do shout-outs becuase I end up trying to thank the whole fucking world. You all know who you are. Thanks for the interview, Peddy. Hopefully we'll see you on that Euro tour someday.