Drug The Corpse
brian plays bass, turntables and vocals, sen plays drums and gtr
new CDr re-release of early demos out soon!
Real Player file of DTC live, spring 2000ce
Interview From Maximum Rock N' Roll:
MRR - Your first ep is called "This Sounds Right."
If that
sounds right then what do you think sounds "wrong?"
Brian - Oh man, what doesn't sound wrong. Of course, our album title is more
than a bit sarcastic. There are so many fucked up things going on in there.
Lots of tape hiss, much of it added intentionaly, after the songs had been
finished! Strange samples overdubbed on top of live recordings. Mixing studio
sessions with live recordings. We even have our own take on the DJ as rock
musician. On that song "Free Kitten Love Song," I am playing a turntable by
just slamming the needle against the record over and over again. Just for a
really staccato, rhythmic effect. But yeah, we wanted to do hardcore, and have
lots of hard, aggressive, sometimes even noise sounds, but arrange them and
compose them in all the supposedly wrong ways. A bit to be truly punk, in the
standoffish sense. But also because real hardcore punk is about doing things
the supposed wrong way and then proving that there really isn't such a thing.
Sen - For me, it's not so much a matter of differentiating ourselves from what
sounds wrong. If we say "this sounds right," it doesn't necessarily mean that
"not-this sounds wrong." We're not that cynical. Well, we are, but that's not
the point of what our project is about. There's a lot that I think sounds
right, and I just think that our music can also sound right too. We just
recognize that, on the face of it, that ep sounds anything but right, it appears
to sound wrong in relation to a predominantly accepted notion of a "correct"
recording as clean, rehearsed, noiseless, without mistakes. When you listen to
our recording though, you have to realize we've taken an entirely different
approach to doing recordings, so it's going to sound different. But different
isn't necessarily wrong.
MRR - Do you think hardcore sounds wrong? I mean, a lot of people say hardcore
is dead, what do think?
Brian - Hardcore has always addressed very topical, very relevant social and
political issues. And the way hardcore addresses these issues is through a
medium that is realy aggressive. But at some point all this agression just
starts looking silly. So much anger and frustration, yet nothing is really
changing. The efforts on the part of hardcore bands to be political end up
being quite futile. In some sense it is sad. But that's also why it is
beautiful. At least in the ways that these romantic notions of grass roots
change, politics meeting art and somehow being a new form of power, yet not
really ever making anything happen, I find it beautiful, but in a tragic way.
Sen - For me, hardcore has become way too dogmatic, which is what happens with
the popularization of any aesthetic style, no matter how radical and critical
the original movement was. The whole idea of hardcore now is pretty ridiculous.
There's no seriously vanguard bands or groups starting out now that would want
to attach themselves to the category.
MRR - Well, it doesn't sound like you guys want to call yourselves hardcore
then...
Brian - Oh, no, don't get us wrong. Yeah, there is a a stigma around, there is
something just kinda banal about being a "hardcore" band at this point, but we
still think it is possible to evolve that lineage without being redundante. We
are still interested in approaching current social issues, from a "hardcore"
perspective, with our music. And a lot of our sound is intentionaly taken from
this dogmatic aesthetic, as Sen put it. But, in a lot of ways, our sound is
also a commentary on hardcore. We may have a lot of the same driving,
aggressive energy as hardcore, but we also like to wash everything out in waves
of psychedelic sounds and lots of lo-fi computer processing, just to push the
agression into these strange, surreal, dream-like places. This creates a tone
of nostalgia around the music. It is a mystique that we are going for. The
same type that early hardcore, recorded live on boomboxes had. Does that make
sense?
Sen - Well I also think that what we're really saying is, it's not about the
sound in all its concrete sensations. We don't expect our music to be listened
to in the usual way. We expect anyone who listens to our music as hardcore to
maintain some healthy distance in participating in our sound. It's more about
what the sound gives access to - ways of seeing routes outside hardcore from
within that perspective. It's just trying to provide some clues to people who
feel trapped.
MRR - Why do you say "healthy" distance?
Sen -Because hardcore is an ideology. And so even if we're commenting on it
critically, our own critique is still itself going to be ideological. I think
it's false to think you can address a particular ideological system while
thinking that you yourself are somehow totally outside of it. But you can still
approach it with recognition for what it is. So the distance is necessary to
recognize it as ideological.
MRR - You know, I never thoght of it that way before. But after hearing it
stated so intelligently, I just gotta let you guys know, that sounds right.
releases:
This Sounds Right tape, self-released
Now Love Is Fear tape, self-released
coming soon: Demo Anthology CDr (Deathbomb)