MusicJournoAnarchoi interview
September 21st 2006 01:55
This is an interview I did a couple of months ago with Sydney punk band Anarchoi, thought I might chuck it up here. Tomorrow's blog will be on defunct Western Sydney punk band The Hassle Brigade.
MP3s (right click and save to download)
Pigs in Their Troughs
Industry Standards
Do you guys really, actually, stand for Anarchy?
Hahaha, yes.
Are you unanimous in this?
Yes. Indeed we are.
What does anarchy mean to you?
Well I could write an essay on this but I’ll try to sum it up in a sentence. To me it means freedom, equality, mutual aid and mutual respect for all beings.
Do you think the majority of humanity is responsible enough to live in
anarchy?
At this current moment in time I’d have to say definitely not. But that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost for the future. That’s more what we’re about, working towards the future, and setting up the support and networks, so that one day in the future (when we’re all long gone) people may be able to live in peace and harmony with each other and the earth.
How do you keep yourself informed of the world at large... what particular sources of information do you trust and which ones do you distrust?
Well naturally I don’t trust much of what the corporate media publishes or screens, However I still watch/read it for their "opinion". However most of the information I would trust and be more likely to pay attention to comes from independent media sources such as indymedia.
Where do you guys draw your influences from?
Lyrically I’m influenced by whatever is happening around me. If I see or hear about something that I think people need to hear about then I will write a song about it. Musically our influences include bits of anarcho-punk, crust, thrash, scandinavian hardcore and lots of other little elements. We pretty much write music solely from how it feels. If we get a good vibe and feel out of a riff then we just keep going from there.
How much do you think your sound has changed since you started?
I don’t think it has changed too much, a bit faster and a bit heavier, and a bit more technical. But I just see that as a stage of maturity, it hasn’t been a conscious change, its not something we talked about, it just happened. We were all pretty young when the band started, and Anarchoi was pretty much the first band all of us were in, so as time has gone on I suppose we’ve all grown a bit musically.
I read that you guys were after a second vocalist at one point – are these plans still alive?
Were definitely still considering this at some time, but we really have to find the right person. I’m sure that it will take time, so we’re not really rushing anything, we’re just going to see what happens.
You’re definitely a ‘message’ band in terms of your lyrics… what do you hope to achieve via these songs?
Like I said, I just write what I feel people need to hear about. All I really hope to achieve is to make people think about what I’m saying. I don’t care if people like or don’t like what I have to say, so long as they consider, listen and understand what I am saying. I suppose you could say my goal is education in some ways.
You guys brought out RAMBO in 2004, tell me about your experiences with this and your plans to bring them back out. And Vitamin X – how do you feel that went? Do you think they’ll come back out? (Ed: Oops, they didn’t bring Rambo out at all… as you can see from Jordan’s answer. Oh well, mistakes happen)
Well we didn’t bring out RAMBO the first time they toured here, we just played the Sydney show at Maggotsville with them. However we do plan to see if we can get them to come back out here again. It’s all a matter of time and finance. However they seem to be keen to come to the region again. As for the Vitamin X tour, well in the end I felt all went well. After all the problems that we faced/overcame I think it was a great success. There’s a lot of people that helped out with the tour that we'd like to send our thanks to. You all know who you are! As for them coming back, well they said they’d love to come back! So next time they are thinking of doing anything in Asia we will try to get them back here.
Any plans for further tours/other international acts?
We hope to do another national tour this year to launch the new album, as well as get over to New Zealand, and maybe Europe. Next year wed like to be able to do Asia and maybe the USA. As for bands coming out, well you’ll just have to wait and see when we launch black sails. But fear not, there’s a lot of tours happening this year regardless.
What would you like to say about Entrans? (Ed: Entrans is the van hire company Anarchoi used on their recent tour)
Don’t use them, ever. Just fucking steer clear, if you have to walk with your gear on your shoulders to fucking broken hill, just do it, it’s better than hiring one of these vehicles.
As a very DIY/pro-active band, what would you like to say to other local
bands out there waiting for someone to give them a show?
Get in contact with us. Haha. Nah seriously no one is going to do it for you, you’ve just gotta put in a lot of hard work. Put on your own shows, talk to other bands, see if they can help you out, get a bunch of your mates together and put on a show in a carpark, have a house party with bands, go talk to the dudes at your local youth centre, just be pro-active in what you do. If you want to play a gig then go put one on, if you wanna record a CD then go record one, if you want to put out a CD, go out and burn 100 CDs and sit up for 16 hours making the booklets, etc etc etc. If there’s any local bands out there that need a start get in contact with us too, as we put on a lot of gigs, and we love to check out new bands.
Anarchoi - website
Anarchoi - myspace
Anarchoi MP3s - lots of MP3s
MP3s (right click and save to download)
Pigs in Their Troughs
Industry Standards
Do you guys really, actually, stand for Anarchy?
Hahaha, yes.
Are you unanimous in this?
What does anarchy mean to you?
Well I could write an essay on this but I’ll try to sum it up in a sentence. To me it means freedom, equality, mutual aid and mutual respect for all beings.
Do you think the majority of humanity is responsible enough to live in
anarchy?
At this current moment in time I’d have to say definitely not. But that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost for the future. That’s more what we’re about, working towards the future, and setting up the support and networks, so that one day in the future (when we’re all long gone) people may be able to live in peace and harmony with each other and the earth.
How do you keep yourself informed of the world at large... what particular sources of information do you trust and which ones do you distrust?
Well naturally I don’t trust much of what the corporate media publishes or screens, However I still watch/read it for their "opinion". However most of the information I would trust and be more likely to pay attention to comes from independent media sources such as indymedia.
Lyrically I’m influenced by whatever is happening around me. If I see or hear about something that I think people need to hear about then I will write a song about it. Musically our influences include bits of anarcho-punk, crust, thrash, scandinavian hardcore and lots of other little elements. We pretty much write music solely from how it feels. If we get a good vibe and feel out of a riff then we just keep going from there.
How much do you think your sound has changed since you started?
I don’t think it has changed too much, a bit faster and a bit heavier, and a bit more technical. But I just see that as a stage of maturity, it hasn’t been a conscious change, its not something we talked about, it just happened. We were all pretty young when the band started, and Anarchoi was pretty much the first band all of us were in, so as time has gone on I suppose we’ve all grown a bit musically.
I read that you guys were after a second vocalist at one point – are these plans still alive?
Were definitely still considering this at some time, but we really have to find the right person. I’m sure that it will take time, so we’re not really rushing anything, we’re just going to see what happens.
You’re definitely a ‘message’ band in terms of your lyrics… what do you hope to achieve via these songs?
Like I said, I just write what I feel people need to hear about. All I really hope to achieve is to make people think about what I’m saying. I don’t care if people like or don’t like what I have to say, so long as they consider, listen and understand what I am saying. I suppose you could say my goal is education in some ways.
You guys brought out RAMBO in 2004, tell me about your experiences with this and your plans to bring them back out. And Vitamin X – how do you feel that went? Do you think they’ll come back out? (Ed: Oops, they didn’t bring Rambo out at all… as you can see from Jordan’s answer. Oh well, mistakes happen)
Well we didn’t bring out RAMBO the first time they toured here, we just played the Sydney show at Maggotsville with them. However we do plan to see if we can get them to come back out here again. It’s all a matter of time and finance. However they seem to be keen to come to the region again. As for the Vitamin X tour, well in the end I felt all went well. After all the problems that we faced/overcame I think it was a great success. There’s a lot of people that helped out with the tour that we'd like to send our thanks to. You all know who you are! As for them coming back, well they said they’d love to come back! So next time they are thinking of doing anything in Asia we will try to get them back here.
Any plans for further tours/other international acts?
We hope to do another national tour this year to launch the new album, as well as get over to New Zealand, and maybe Europe. Next year wed like to be able to do Asia and maybe the USA. As for bands coming out, well you’ll just have to wait and see when we launch black sails. But fear not, there’s a lot of tours happening this year regardless.
What would you like to say about Entrans? (Ed: Entrans is the van hire company Anarchoi used on their recent tour)
Don’t use them, ever. Just fucking steer clear, if you have to walk with your gear on your shoulders to fucking broken hill, just do it, it’s better than hiring one of these vehicles.
As a very DIY/pro-active band, what would you like to say to other local
bands out there waiting for someone to give them a show?
Get in contact with us. Haha. Nah seriously no one is going to do it for you, you’ve just gotta put in a lot of hard work. Put on your own shows, talk to other bands, see if they can help you out, get a bunch of your mates together and put on a show in a carpark, have a house party with bands, go talk to the dudes at your local youth centre, just be pro-active in what you do. If you want to play a gig then go put one on, if you wanna record a CD then go record one, if you want to put out a CD, go out and burn 100 CDs and sit up for 16 hours making the booklets, etc etc etc. If there’s any local bands out there that need a start get in contact with us too, as we put on a lot of gigs, and we love to check out new bands.
Anarchoi - website
Anarchoi - myspace
Anarchoi MP3s - lots of MP3s
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