Features / One Question Interviews

Trash (Hot Pennies)

SPB: What venue is your favorite to play (and why)?   

Trash: This is a challenging question. We have a lot of great venues in the Phoenix area. My personal favorite has gotta be Chopper John's for its wily crowd and good times. There's always a great mix of bands, bikers, and regulars from the neighborhood. …

Fureigh (Middle-Aged Queers)

SPB: What is a “greatest hit” that you wanted to include in the live set or album but the rest of the band shot down?

Fureigh: We’ve received requests for “Pump Up the Jam” [by Technotronic], but the world’ll just have to wait. 

And “Keep On Livin”’ [by Le Tigre] feels really …

Tell us about your bagpipes?

Travis (Bitters and Distractions – guitar / backup vocals)

SPB: It seems you’re mostly releasing singles, as compared to EP/LP. Is there a personal preference or deeper reason why?

Travis: You’re correct that we’ve released a significant number of singles over the years. To be more specific, we’ve put out five EPs and five singles, one of which …

Monet (Whiplass Records)

SPB: I imagine you’d been thinking about starting this label for a while before it happened. What was the final push or aha! moment that turned it from idea into reality?

Monet: Our origin was actually a series of events: The wheels started turning when I decided to write an article for a punk zine …

Marco (De Kleine Opstand – bass)

SPB: A lot of Dutch bands opt to sing in English, you go against the grain by choosing for the Dutch language. What are the pros and cons for this decision? 

Marco: It just occurred to me that we never actually decided to sing in Dutch; we just started doing it. For …

Paul Warner (Crash Outfit)

SPB: How much space in your home is dedicated to music (media or instruments)?

Warner: I would say it equals the exact dimensions of a well-fed woolly mammoth.

Constantin (General Chaos)

SPB: What is a lesson you learned from the making-of your first album that directly influenced how you approached album #2?

Constantin: I think when we came into studio the second time, we already had an idea of what to expect since we knew the studio and we had already recorded an album there. This …

Cory (Bat Leather)

SPB: What is your favorite music-related film or documentary?

Cory: It’s a tie between The Color of Noise and Some Kind of Monster.

TCON is possibly the greatest snapshot of the ‘90s noise rock scene. Great interviews and amazing footage.

SKOM….Love ‘em or hate ‘em, but watching the unraveling of a …

Maria (Sacrosanta Decadencia Occidental – vocals/artist)

SPB: The artwork of your album took over a year to make. What was this long experience like for you?

Maria: If I were to put it shortly, the first thing that comes to mind is a long and winding road: exhausting but exciting at the same time. It’s having multiple things …

Brux

SPB: You choose to skip English and sing in your mother tongue. What are the pros and cons of this choice for you?

Brux: Our songs are mostly in our mother tongue (spanish / catalan), we just have a few in English. 

Pros: they sound more natural, the link with your local audience is stronger. 

…

Serge (The Goons - vocals)

SPB: How did writing the new material compare to when you sat down and started work on your last record – 19 years ago?

Serge: The old stuff was written more collaboratively than the recent songs. These days we don’t get together as often as we did ‘cause we’re a bit more spread …

Abe Brennan (Dead Pioneers)

SPB: How many Nazi teeth do you think you could knock out in a single punch?

Brennan: Hi, Chuck, nice to hear from you, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss the dislodging of Nazi teeth. I appreciate it.

So knocking Nazi -- or any -- teeth out of someone’s head is, …

Rob David (Death Of Youth – vocals)

SPB: What is the weirdest description you’ve heard of your music and could you see where the commenter was coming from?

David: One outlet once described our single “Fix Your Heart or Die” as “An emotionally charged piece of heavy rock combining 80's New Wave Guitars, Metalcore emotional vocals and just …

Filippo (Shizune – bass)

SPB: Breviario d'oblio is something of a comeback after 8 years. What triggered this comeback?

Filippo: It was not meant as a comeback. We were almost ready to enter the studio in 2020, then Covid happened and we lost our practice room. It was hard to rehearse, but we never thought about splitting up. …

Seb Alvarez (Meth)

SPB: Is there a regional food you look forward to when you go on the road?

Alvarez: Gravy lunch

Heike (Remina)

SPB: In the artwork of the last two releases (the EP Erebus and the album The Silver Sea) the black and white art is highlighted with a red accent. 

It feels like it is part of a story, is this the case?

Heike: Throughout all the artworks, there is usually the inclusion of the …

Steven Douglas Jenkins (The Went Wrongs - vocals/guitar)

SPB: Who does the majority of the band’s driving (is there a reason or a story as to why)?

SDJ: When we play out of town, we usually split the driving, but if I had to choose who does it most, that would be me, since I’m the band dad. …

Courtney Ranshaw (Black Adidas)

SPB: Is there an instrument that's central to "the Black Adidas sound"?

Ranshaw: I’d like to showcase an instrument that’s central to one of the songs on the record and has made its way onto a few songs of ours over the years. This is our acoustic cover of Rocket From The Crypt's "Ditch …

Al (Dromedary Records)

SPB: What keeps you interested in running a record label as time passes and your own life changes? What keeps you motivated?

AL: I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, and there have certainly been times where it slowed way down or I took breaks, because of personal trauma, or because it was …