One for the birds

Social Distrust is an interesting band from Germany. I reviewed and fairly liked their latest record, “Who is my killer?” and decided to interview them as well and they turned out to be good guyd with interesting takes on everything from society to football, as you will see in this interview. Check them and their music out for yourselves! http://www.myspace.com/socialdistrust

Oftb: What made you decide, at such a young age, to start a band? Have your influences changed over the years, or have you always sounded the same?

SD: Well, we are from the countryside and it can be pretty boring there. So either you just hang out and bother old people by playing playing tricks with them or you terrorize your neighbourhood by playing punkrock in a garage. We did both, but with a bigger focus of the noiseterror. Haha.

Of course our influences have changed. We started as a streetpunk band with a pretty rough sound. I’d even say that the sound of our early days was pretty close to hardcore.

But when you grow up, you get to know more bands and listen to different kinds of music, instead of being a 14-16 year-old anti-establishment punk rock kid. Views and taste change. Progression never stops.

Oftb: You sing in English (and are doing a helluvva good job at it too!), although the punk scene in your, like my, country have a long tradition of singing in one’s native tongue. Why did you decide to sing in English and have you received a lot of bullshit for it?

SD: Thanks for the compliment buddy. We sing in English because you can reach more people with that. We are not a band that just plays in the practice room. We like to travel and meet new people, in Germany as well as abroad. And the German language is not too popular abroad, people wouldn’t care about us. We used to have a couple of German lyrics back in the day, but those songs are almost forgotten…

Oftb: Which band was the best to play with live that you have played with?

SD: That’s a good question…we had already a lot of fun with a bunch of bands. The Real McKenzies are pretty cool and laid back, it’s always a blast to party with them. We played a couple of shows with them in 08, as well as with Far From Finished. 2nd District and Radio Dead Ones (both from Germany) are also pretty cool backstage. Then we played with this crazy Japanese band, ‘Maximum the Hormone’…that was sick! It was their first Euro Tour, we were asked to open for them. We didn’t know them and their sound didn’t match to our sound at all, so we thought about not playing. But we said yes, just for fun, an it turned out as a badass show in a sold out venue with 600 or 700 people. And the band was super friendly. Good times!

Oftb: Would you like to play in Scandinavia and how does one book you?

SD: Of course, we’d be super stoked to play in Scandinavia! Just contact us on myspace or write us an e-mail, we do the booking ourselves!

Oftb: Where in Germany are you from and what’s the scene like there? Split over animal rights and straight edge or a real sense of unity?

SD: We’re from the countryside, 90 km south of Dortmund respectively 80 km east of Cologne. In Dortmund, there’s a strong anti-fascist movement and a lot of alternative people, vegan style and stuff. Cologne…no idea…pretty much indie-music there and yuppies. Dortmund is definitely more punkrock.

Oftb: At your age, you’re just about as old (or young), give or take a few years, as reunited Germany. What has it been like growing up in a country where people of the same nation were not only split by a wall, but told by it’s leaders that they were mortal enemies?

SD: Actually it was like growing up like everywhere else I think. I don’t know how it’d have been with the border. I think this question would be a good one for people in their mid 30′s. They could tell you something about it. I just can say that I have a bunch of relatives in the eastern part of Germany and me and my family used to visit them pretty often when I was a kid. So I could get an insight in the process of rebuilding the eastern part. The economy in East-Germany was subsidied by the taxes of the West, it was pretty expensive and you always could hear people complain about it (not in my family), sayin the money would be better for other purposes. People in the West made jokes of the Eastern folks and the other way around as well. But all in all it was like growing up in ONE country.

Oftb:  Do you support any team in the Bundesliga (or lower divisions)? What do you think of your team’s chances this season?

SD: Manuel (singer) and me (guitar) are fans of Borussia Dortmund. They ended up on 5th position, which means they will be back in European competition. It’s good to be back, it was about time! They played a good season and with a little less stupidity they could have reached the 3rd position and thus the Champions Laegue Qualifications…but they lost some energy in the last games of the season.

Oftb: What do you think of Germany’s chances at this year’s world cup of football? Will you go all the way to the final?

SD: Yeah, the world cup…always a good question. Our team is always strong when playing tournaments, the last two world cups were not too bad for us! I’m more than confident that we survive the first round and usually we should make it at least to the semi-finals but that will be a hard way. It is possible that we would have to play against England in the eigth-finals. And the matches against England are always real fights. Then maybe against France or Argentina, would mean ‘hard-times’ again. But when we played against Argentina the last World Cup, we proved that we can keep up with the best teams of the world! Now the situation is different, we have new players and so on. But the spirit is the same!

Artist: TOPPER / Title: “PUNK DON’T DEATH…JUST GET THROUGH IT” / Format: CD / Genré: PUNK ROCK / Label: SUPERNOVA RECORDS

One of the perks of the job of reviewing music in my blog is all the free records I get sent from labels and bands and sometimes way early too. This record won’t be in stores until late May, so you can read this review a few times before you decide whether or not to buy it.

Now, before I start reviewing the actual record, there is a few serious points I must tackle first. The first is about the label. Supernova Records is a sublabel to Sweden’s biggest label, Bonnier Amigo, it’s still indie, just fuck-off-big and some people have a problem with that. On the other hand, the same label, Bonnier Amigo, carries some artists with huge streetcred, so it really shouldn’t affect my review of Topper.

Far more serious to some, may it be, that Bonnier Amigo was the company that brought The Pirate Bay before the law. Again, I have no problem with that, I prefer owning my music on a record and I can only say to you who might want to share files that the label might be some very bad apples in your book, but don’t let it affect the band!

That being said, I don’t particulary like this record. It’s not bad, it’s just not my kettle of fish. So, before I proceed,  I have to state that in order to give this band a fair review, I must put myself in the mindset of someone who likes this kind of music, overproduced, super-well-played, radio friendly punk/rock and I know that there are loads of people who sees a good thing in all things I find a bit boring, so there will absolutely be people out there who likes this record.

The band comes across to me like a mix between “Give ‘em enough rope”-era Clash, Swedish 80′s rock bands like Sator, as well as early 2000′s yank punk of the Lars Fredriksen-type. The only tracks I really enjoy are “Suburbs” and “Do you love your country”, cos there’s some rock & roll spirit in it that the producer didn’t manage to kill off.

Lyricswise, it’s safe cards like mild social criticism, love and criticism of the trendies. There’s one problem with that, when they criticise the trendies in the tune “Television”, I think they come pretty near biting the hand which feeds them. I think young people with no interest in buying a flight jacket or getting a mohawk, but who like a bit of rebellious rock & roll that comes with no strings attached is precisely the possible fan base of this band.

If young people who like the kind of music I have compared them to should read this, then by all means, buy this record! They’re good at what they’re doing and you’ll like it. Try catching them live as well, cos I think they might be bloody good live, possibly better than on record!