This was an old interview I made for the singer of M.B. Filip Fuchs for the swedish fanzine Afasi #2 in 1998. Filip is now playing in the czechish hardcoreband SEE YOU IN HELL.
OK, the boring shit first: When did MRTVA BUDOCNOST started and what has you released by now?
OK, so let´s star the shit now – M.B. formed back in the
beginning of 94, with the intention to play fucking waw and fast hardcore. Till
now (Dec 98) we released 1 split Lp (w/ LEFT IN RUINS on SIX WEEKS REC. From Californa), 3 split EPs (W/COEXUST, PANGS OF REMORSE on INSANE
SOCIETY REC. In Czech and with japanese ARGUE DAMNATION in the USA again- the
worth split, w/ABOLISH from Japan,
was never released because of this lasy or rip off label (D.I.Y. REC.) and some
tapes. We also on some comp. Vinyls and tapes and til now we did almost 100
gigs, some of them in countrys like Germany, Denmark, Slovenija, Austria or
Italy. In October we did 8 gigs from Czech tour with cool french crusties
PRIMTIV BUNKO and also supported DROP DEAD on some gigs during it. Right now we
reharse a bit, because in the end of the year we plan to visit studio to record
we new material for split LP with GRIDE, wich will be co-releassed by cca 10
various international labels and the same stuff will probably put (together
with from our unreleased ”japanese” split EP from 95 as a bonus) on 8” flexi by some U.S. label next
year. Our present line-up is: ROSI (voc), MARTSTA (voc), FILIP (g), MAREK (bg,
voc) and CINO (dr).
Because you call your label Död framtid and because you call
yourself ”Filip Lindgren”; I got the feeling that you´re really in to swedish
hardcore, am I right?
Yes your right, especially our drummer like to call himself ”Janne
Nihilström” and he is 100% swedish crust addict. We did some old swedish covers
(SHITLICKERS, ANTICIMEX, TOTALITÄR, MOB 47) in the past, some on them are on
MAKE KOMPOST NOT WAR VOL. 2 comp. Tape, really hilarious shit! Anyway, I
personaly like a lot of old and new swedish bands, my favorite are surely
TOTALITÄR, the best swedish band ever, I have all their EPs! Also MOB 47,
PROTESBENGT, (old) ANTICIMEX, SHITLICKERS, S.O.D. or DISCARD are great, and
from the new ones I would mention RAJOITUS, DISMASHINE, LEFT IN RUINS, DS 13,
ARSEDESTROYER, BLUDGE, SKITSYSTEMM ABUSE… realy good stuff! Here in Brno we
have seen gigs of DISKONTO and WARCOLLAPSE some years back and they were great!
Shame that only a very few bands from your country tour over here. Our bassplayer
and one of the vocalists are doing EXPRESS YOUR FEELINGS zine in wich they did
lot of interviews of swedish bands and our drummer did zine ”HOGO FOGO” with only
swedish and japanese stuff
inside. Is it enough to prove our ”scandinavian roots”??? Also books by Astrid
Lindgren (especially ”Barnen i Bullerbyne”) used to be one of my favorite stuff
when I was a child…
Tell me a little bit more about your label; what has you
released except your own stuff? I also know that you did a comp. Tape under the
label Hogo Fogo rec, is this another label or did you just change name of the
label?
It's
nothing so serious or important, as far as I remember we did on DÖD FRAMTID
only "Worst of 94-96" tape and co-released split EP w/PANGS OF
REMORSE and that's all. Maybe we will release 3 way split tape with DROPDEAD,
PRIMITIV BUNKO and M.B. from recent gig in Prag, but who knows if it will be
under DÖD FRAMTID or some other obscure swedish name ... HOGO FOGO is label of
Ciko, he is doing every year comp. tapes of Czech and Slovak bands called
"MAKE KOMPOST NOT WAR", till now 3 volumes are out, vol. 4 out soon,
with M.B. doing covers of old Czech thrash metal bands and some other horrible
acts of musical disability ... I think that these compilations are very good representation
of our scene, it's only crust/grind/fast HC/noise stuff and I can totally recommend them to anyone who would
like to know what's going on over here musically. MAKE KOMPOST NOT WAR VOL. 3
is distribute in Sweden by Eric from SPIT TEETH zine, so you can get it from
him, the rest is available from us.
On
the split 7” with COEXIST there is an anti-smokesong. Is it dedicated these
alreddy smoke is it more a ”dont start to smoke”-song. Many people who somke
did it when they was very young and did´nt think of the bad aspects when they
started to smoke. Do you really think you can judge them as ignorant?
It's
just against smoking, so it's for both - the people who smoke and the people
who didn't started yet {and I hope they never will}. Recently I did to my zine
really long and in depth article about smoking and especially about
multinational tobacco industry and it's effect on 3rd world countries, animal
experiments, their dirty tricks used in advertisement and ofcourse also about
the bad effects on people's health and you would be surprised how fucked up
this whole industry is, it's surely one of the worst one. People are often
against smoking because of '.it's bad health effects, bul health problems aren' t for me
so imporlant if we lalk about it - as soon as it is only smoker who want to
slowly kill himself wilh cigarete, just more power to him, I don' t care. But
when his fucked up habil affecls also the other people who have to share the
same space wilh him {gigs are classical example}, ./..Then it's prelly bad. I
mean, il's pretty intollerant to bolher the others with your smoking, it's the same like if
someone would throw teargas in to the gig place, would you like il? Why should
non smokers inhale your fucking smoke? Yes, this is ignorant and completely
inlolerant towards lhe others, no matter how much anarchy patches you wear or how
much
polilical
lyrics you scream. I understand I understand that stop smoking is diffucult,
but lot´s of people did it, I also somked when I was stupid school kid. I think
we all constantly ask ourselves if our actions/behaviours/habits etc. are
consistent with our morals and this include also the question of what kind of
people we support with buying our food, petrol for car or cigarettes. Meat
industry, Shell or Philip Morris can only laugh on us as long as our preaching
is nothing more lhan empty,words and phrases.
As
I´m sure I´m not the first one to ask you about your antisomestance, do you
think it´s disturbing when peple ak you about it or do you think it´s positive
that there starting an openly debate about it?
I
think it's OK, when people ask about it, on the other side I don'l like when
M.B. is seen by lhe others as some "anti smoking band", it's just one
song out of the cca 50 which we did. But I know that it's interesting issue
which affects lot of people in this scene and thal il's not very often
reflecled in most of punk/HC lyrics {DOOM, ACTlVE MINDS or CAPITALIST
CASUALTIES being the cool exceptions}. And one more lhing thal should be
mentioned - we are against smoking, but that DOESN'T mean that we hate people
who smoke, people shouldn't be judged only by the fact if lhey smoke or don'l
or if they eat or don'l eal meat. I hope you understand what Imean.
OK,
another boring question: What do you do outside the band? Does anyone work or go
to school?
Two of us work – Marsta is gardener and
Marek is worker in recycling factory, they both do also lhe E.Y.F. zine. Ciko
is unemployed, except the above mentioned tape label and zine activites he
plays drums in S.O.K. and guitar in PANGS OF REMORSE and occasionally organise
some gigs in his homelown. Rosi is doing civil service and he tries lo start
another band ... I study polilology/social work, do a zine HLUBOKA ORBA and
help with our local environmental/animal righls group. AIso me + ROSI + our ex
singer Korda are sometimes doing gigs under the "HARDCORE HELL CREW"
name. Except Rosi we are.all fanalical record colleclors wilh obsession lo U.S.
power violence and exlreme HC and scandinavian and japanese crust, listening lo
records is probably our favourite activity ... By the way, we are 5 people from
4 different places, so we don't hang out logelher too often and also can't
rehearse loo much, which makes things somelimes a bit difficull.
Why
do you think that the death/blackmetal scene has beeing so connected with the
punk/hc-scene? Is it the very trange taht a scene that is so macho and sexist
is connecteed with one that says to be against it? And by the way, is´nt
satanism as bad as any other religion?
Maybe it's the case of Sweden, but over
here I don't see big connection of death/black with punk/HC scene. In last year
or two more people who are into grind core/death metal started to be a bit
inlerested in animal righls and antifascism, which is really good. Il has been
the work of some cool labels in lhis style like OBSCENE PROD. or SHINDY PROD.
and also bands like MALIGNANT TUMOUR, GRIDE elc., who spread lhese ideas and
because lhey are already popular in this kind of scene, some people also
started to share these ideas. I don't think the dealh/black metal scene is too
macho or sexist over here {there is probably more girls involved in doom metal
bands than in punk bands here}, to be honest I'm not very interested in it
anyway, so it's difficull to pass a judgement. Salanism is funny, I like the
image of black melal bands and old VENOM records rules! Most of M.B. band
members used to be big fans of old Czech black metal bands in lale 80's like
TORR or ROOT!! "Lel the northern winds blow!"
The
last years punk has been more and more retrospective; more bands reunite etc…
What do you think about that? I mean, why care so much of all these old bands
when there is great bands like yourself that needs attention?
It depends which bands you mean, I lhink
that most of these bands who reformed are crap and they did it because they've
seen lhe enormous succes of GREEN DAY, RANCID elc. and when SEX PISTOLS
reformed, theyalso thought "why not reform, let's earn a bit of money and
fame .. " On the other side, I have seen recently VARUKERS gig in Prag and
they were really good and poverful, altnough I'm not sure hov much they slill
believe to their original ideas vhich they used to preach {but that's problem
of aqmost every band - to live up vhat you preach}. I just lhink thal each band
should know when it's lime to
stop... "Live {and play, haha} fast, diee young and leave a good looking
corpse!"
I
read in the czechish scenereport you did for Join Kao zine that your local club
Seda Litina has been attacked by nazis; can you tell a little about it? Are
there much nazi groups where you live and are you involved in any
anti-fascistgroups personaly?
The
club existed back in '96 for cca 10 months and ve used to have there lot of
good concerts {DISKONTO, AUS ROTTEN, TUOMIOPAIVAN LAPSET, LOS CRUDOS, FINAL
WARNING, FLEAS AND LICE, DOOM etc.}, the club was situated in old iron factory,
but the problem with nazi skins, local authorities and ploice finaly lead it´s
closure. . Yes, here is lot of nazis in Brno and it's not very healthy to walk
to some areas, especially on weekend nights and especially when here is some
imporlant footbal match. Brno is.second biggest city in Czech and the nazi
problem was alvays here, sometimes it's more quiet, sometimes not. Nazis are
already vell established here, they run several army shops over here and just
recently I have heard about nevw nazi pub, which was opened by one of the long
time leaders of Brno's nazis. Luckily they aren't very good organised and till
now can hardly get together and carry some thoughtful attacks, they can beat
someone when they go from the pub in the night or when they march from the
footbal match. But this can be changed to vorse anytime. There are people
fighting nazis and you can sometimes hear about someone who gave nazis good
kicking, but the problem is, that there isn't any organised resistance against
nazis. Nazis should be fight vith inteligence and not with their own veapons
and some Fridays night kicking of some lonely naziskinhead by five or len punx
doesn't solve anything, more likely it wiIl lead to another altacks. This was
proved abslolutely true over here. AIso it's pretty ironic, that lot of most violent
and-radical antifascists over here
slowly adopted the same nazi mentalily and outlook - they "developed"
from crusties and punx to
"unpolitical"
SHARP skinheads and nov they'share almost the same ideas and behaviour as nazis
- sexism, footbal hooliganism, hate towards anarchists, left wing oriented
people etc. Sometimes they cause more troubles on punk gigs than nazis. It's
pretty fucked up, As I said, there is strong need for organised antifascist
resistance, only then can lhings probably change to better.
What
do you think about….
Frank
Zappa ?
I don't know too much about him, he used
to provoke conservative America a bit back in 60's and 70's and he was quite
popular among Czech underground scene in 80's, when he visited Prag shortly
after the fall of old regime, there were hundreds of people vaiting for him on
the airport ... Even the Czech preSident invited him and Zappa was supposed to
be something like "culturaI bridge" between Czech and USA, but the
U.S. government wasn't happy about this idea, soit somevhat falled down. He
died some years ago ...that's all I knov about him, it's difficult to say any
opinion about him, sorry. Hmm, I don't like his music, that's all.
Chaos
Days?
It's
good fun on the video, it had to be even more funny lo be there in person, but
I would rather like to see people fighting with police for some better reasons
than just for the right to get drunk in the public and act silly ...but it's
OK, everyone has it's own way of enterlainment and fun.
Maximum
Rock'n'roll?
Great!
One of my fave zines, it's alvays very interesting to read. I like mostly Felix
Havoc columns, scene reports, revievs and advertisements, because they are good
source of information what's going on. I have deep respect for the people who
can manage to publish this zine for so long time, regularlyand still in so good
qualily. Lot of other similar magazines are total crap {Flippside} or gelting a
bit boring nov {Heartattack and Profane Existence sometimest.MRR still manages
to maintain high quaIity. If I should criticize something in it, then surely
interviews - lot of them are with stupid, boring bands, who have nothing to
say. It seems that many crapindie/"wanna be next Green Day" kind of
bands manage to get on the MRR pages.
Why
is it so few bands that sing in their native language?
Because.it's
fashionable to sing in English and because lot of people just want to play
music they like, but can't write good lyrics, so they end up throwing together
some stupid English words stolen from other bands and then they hope that it
will sound cool.
You
said in Tasmanian angel zine that most people in the czechish D.I.Y.
punk/hcsene dont do much than go to gigs to be drunk/get high. Still you hear
about all these bands tour in the Czech that say how good the czechish scene
is. What do you like to say about that?
Hey,
you misinterpreted it! You fucking journalist liar, haha... I said "People
in Brno don't do anything exdept going to gigs and getting drunk"!!!
That's still more or less true, although situation is getting better and
recently some new fresh blood emerged here - some new people started doing gigs,
zines and even plan to open infoshop soon. I think that we have very good scene
over here in Czech, really political and active, maybe even more than in many
other countries I have seen, despite the big problems which they don't face too
much in the wealthy western countries {lack of financial sources, problems with
nazis etc.}. We don't have here networks of state sponsored youth centres like
for example in Germany, where they can do gigs etc., so it force people to
organise gig by themselves, if they want to see it. Gigs are usually held in
pubs or rock clubs {rareIy}, there aren't any stable places to play. People use
to travel long distances to Prag or Brno to see foreign bands live - on DOON
concert in Brno in 96 there was nearly 1.000 people! Foreign bands are always
surprised by the amount of people attending the gigs {rarely under 100 people}.
There's lot of zines, some cool labels/distros {INSANE SOCIETY, VIEW BEYOND,
DAY AFTER, MINORITY, MERCILESS CORE ...} and lot of really good bands, most of
them have already some vinyls out, so check them out - MALIGNANT TUMOUR
{grindcore in the vein of Regurgitate/Agathocles}, LIESANDDISTRUST{crust},GRIDE
{extreme HCIgrind}-:-TELEFON-(raw,screaming
hardcore, they played in Sweden some months back!}, CO-CA {punk as fuck}, HOW
LONG? {crust core, they did split 7" with swedish UNARMED and probably
will have another split 7” in Sweden out} BALACLAVA
{SXEveganmosh},THEMA11{emo)... One thing that I don't like on our scene is,
that the people don't last too long in it, mostly 2 or 3 years and thert they
just vanish off, it's pretty sad that despite all this big amount of zines,
bands, demonstrations, gigs etc., only few people of the hard "core"
manage to stay active or atleast supportive to the scene in longer terms. By
the way there will be huge Czech scene report {musical and political} included
in our split LP with GRIDE.
… And
how is the political climate in Czech at the moment? Has it really been any big
differnece since the east bloc falled down?
Ofcourse
there has been major difference in political, economical, culturaI etc.
situation since the eastern bloc falled down in 1989, otherwise you wouldn't be
reading this letter now and you would know nothing about some lame Czech
hardcore band called M.B... In the times of old so called "communist"
regime there was strong censorship, lot of rock bands were prosecuted and their
band members were even sent to jail sometimes, the situation got a bit better
in the end of 80's, but punk and hardcore bands had still remain in underground.
Even in 1988 some people were kicked from university here in Brno just for
organising punk concert. I just write it down to give you a bit of picture of
the situation over here 10 years ago. Ofcourse that there's lot of completely
fucked up things on this new system of capitaIist democracy and I can now spent
half of your zine describing them, but still it's better than the previous
regime in which we had to live for 40 years.
As
groupname like MRTVA BUDCNOST, wich in english means ”dead future” and with
very depressive lyrics, do you really see any hope for the earth and it´s
citizens?
No, I
don't beleive in it. I try to do my best to somewhat distance myself from the
brainless mass of apathetic and ignorant fuckheads a,leading this world to quite
fucked up future and I believe that by s~ctivities in which I'm involved we can
change some small things to better, but I'm not idealistic on global scale. I
also don't want to adopt this "nihilislic" look at the world, as il's mostly an excuse for laziness
and general stupidily of these vho call themselves so, so I try to do some {in
my opinion}posilive acltivities like band, zine, polilical stuff etc., I don' t
want to rot in apathy waiting for final
apocalypse.
I the
above mentioned Tasmanian angelinterview you call your music ”extreme-core”, do
you really think any new musical cathegory is necessary?
Yes,
for me it's necessary, since words like "punk" or
"hardcore" have lot of various meanings today. I mean, DISCHARGE, NO
MEANS NO and YOUTH OF TODAY can be all put under "hardcore" label,
bul they all play so differenl music, that you need some musical
"sub-calegories", if you vant to describe their musical slyle. I
don't see anything wrong with this, I like to know what kind of music the band
play and if only descriplion I get is "hardcore". then il's not too
much.
It´s
like many people in the scene at the moment is against abortion; what do you
think about it and do you see all anti-abortionactivists as sexists?
I
don't know in which "scene" , but surely not over here, even the
absolute majorily of "normal" people in Czech is for legal aborlion
{Calholic church vas never" popular over here}. I know only very fev
individuals in hardcore vho are against abortion, luckily they are not
attempting to call to aulhorities to make abortion illegal, they just try to
explain people that they shouldn't do aborlions, because its barbaric. I can
undersland them as long as their efforts are in allempt lo explain their stance
wilhout conservative and religious bullshit {like we see it for example in USA
or in hardline movement}. I don't consider all anti-abortion aclivities wrong,
I think lhal people should think belore they fuck and public educalion about it
is neccessary. Abortion shouldn't be used as some kind of conlraception.
I´ve
heard that you are straight edge, is because of personal or ideology reasons?
What do you think about the old sxe-slogan ”You cant be a threat to the system
if you use drugs?”
"You
can't be a threat lo any system if you can't handle your drug and alcohol
use" , I would ralher say it this vay. I became S.E. cca 5-6 years ago
both for personal and ideological reasons, I figured oul thal I started lo
drink only to be "cool~ {and face il, most of you starded with it exactly
for the same reason} and that it's just a waste of lime. I have seen friends
turning from cool people into apathelic morons, concering only of the dope and
beer. I think that alcohol and drugs are very succeful tool of the system to
keep people (especially young people) complacent and inactive, it´s a kind of social conlrol. And there are
more reasons why I don't want to support it. Bul it's free choice of everyone
to use what he or she wants, drugs included, it's prelly fucked up that in
Czech these assholes in parliamenl passed new law, which prosecule the
possession of any 'kind 'and amount of drugs for your personal use. I'm totally
for legalisalion of "soft" drugs. It's ironic that this system feeds
people wilh his own legal drugs like alcohol and lobacco, which may have really
deslruclive effect on people's health and on the other side it prosecules
people for using "illegal" drugs like cannabis, who are infact safer.
And I think that even the hard drugs aren't so horrible like they {medias,
police, polilicians and olher baslards} paint them - each year in Czech die
around 20.000 people on diseases related to smoking, while number of those
dying because of hard drug use is around 10 or 20.
Any
last words?
Yes -
thank you very much for really inleresting interview, it may sound like a
phrase, but I really appreciate your effort . If you want our split LP vith
LEFT IN RUINS, then try lo get it from their adress {Anders Persson, Ornvagen
94, 227 31 Lund} and I think that our brandnew splil LP vith GRIDE vill be probably
out just in the time when you read this inlerview, so anyone interesled can get
in touch. I know that Czech and east European hardcore in general has never
been very popular vorldvide and probably never will, but if you want lo check
out some crushing extreme and fast sounds, then give it a try.
,•
