An Interview With Blacklisted

This weekend I had a marathon trip to Philadelphia and back for the Floorpunch reunion/Redcheeks benefit show, and while I was there I had the opportunity to speak with Shawn, the drummer from Philly's own Blacklisted. They played the best I'd ever seen them that night, and confirmed their status as one of the biggest, if not the biggest band in hardcore right now.

Shawn was a great guy, and despite both of us saying we didn't have a ton of time, the interview went pretty long...not that I'm complaining. Here it is.


First of all, I just want to apologize...you guys played Peoria over the summer and we gave you shitty mics, or the PA was bad, or something.

That's alright man, it happens sometimes, you just...sometimes you gotta roll with it, you know?

Everybody was just as disappointed and frustrated with it as you guys were, trust me. And secondly, I'm working on 20 minutes of sleep in 36 hours so if this interview goes like shit...my bad. So uh, first of all...good fucking show.

Cool, man. Yeah.

I've seen you guys around six times and this was the best I've ever seen. I'm sure playing a big show like this in front of a hometown crowd was great.

Yeah, it was cool, you know, it was a change. We hadn't really played a show in like...a month, we've just been spending our time writing and recording and stuff, so to play a show again, especially in Philly, was pretty dope. It was a good cause, and some awesome bands, so it worked out.

Definitely. Speaking of recording, how's it going?

It's going great, man. We...everything's done, we just gotta go back...everything's done minus vocals, so there's vocals and then mixing, and uh...after that just mastering and artwork, and that kind of stuff.

Any title yet?

Title? Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God...it's out there on the internet, in case you couldn't catch that.

Oh wow. Shit.

[laughter] Nah, it's cool. But uh, yeah, so...it should be out in early March. That's what we're looking at right now, so...

What about the sound? More like the last seven inch, more of the melodic type stuff? Something in-between?

It's like...elements of both. There's definitely melody in there but it's still hard music. It's like the big brother of the EP, of Peace on Earth. So, if you're into Peace on Earth, there's no reason that you couldn't be into the LP that's forthcoming.

More just standard rookie-interview questions, I guess...favorite place to play.

Hoooo...

...besides home.

Philadelphia, that's an easy answer, yeah. Besides Philly...uh, I'm gonna have to go international and probably say, like...Belgium.

Yeah?

Yeah, and we just played Iceland, too, so that was...uh...(at this point someone really loudly half-interrupts the proceedings) really cool...she with you?

Um...no.

Oh, I was gonna be like "come on, we're doing something here!" But overseas places kind of take you by surprise sometimes. Belgium was really cool, Iceland was dope, especially since like you don't go to Iceland that much. California has really been steppin up, like California's been really, really fucking cool for us, um...Chicago's always been dope...

That's right.

Illinois just in general, dude. It's pretty cool. The Midwest is pretty good, Florida has some good spots...I don't know. If I had to like, single out places I'd probably say like...I'd probably say like, Anaheim, Chicago, Montreal used to be really good for us but we haven't gone there in a really long time, long story. I can't really think of anything else off the top of my head.

That's cool, that's a bunch of places man. So...whose idea was the blog?

Me and George had been just kinda wanting to do something like that for a while, and we saw Fucked Up had one, and like...no one else had one. It's kind of different, because we don't have like a proper website, because the one we had ran out and none of us are gifted at like, websites and shit so we just said alright, let's do the next best thing. The blog was just gonna be like, updates from the road and stuff like that, good shows, videos, pictures. But it kind of...the introduction was kind of like, let's just give people the background history of the band, where it started, where we are now and everything in between. George kind of wanted to catapult the blog and we kind of agreed that it would be a good idea.

What is it that got you into hardcore? Bands, shows, feelings?

Oh, man. I think the intensity of the whole vibe, the music and stuff. I'm a pretty hyperactive person anyway, so I think it's more natural for me to, uh, be into something that's harder and more aggressive. Not that I'm an aggressive person, just more of a hyperactive person, so it fits my like, my style more. As like a person, and more importantly as a drummer, I couldn't play slow music. Like, I couldn't play jazz - I can play jazz, I just don't want to play jazz, you know? It's just the faster, harder stuff and like just all the elements together just kind of sum up together what I am now and what my best interest is.

Plus it was something different. The shows were smaller, it wasn't like you go to see a rock show, and you'll never be able to say to the bands onstage like "oh hey, your music is great," or whatever. Hardcore was like, if I saw a band and was really into their music, I could tell them "that was an awesome set," or "those lyrics on that record are amazing," or like "that part's hard as hell." It's kind of more accessible to me, and it kind of just fit me as a person.

What is it about Philly? It seems like this town has one of the strongest scenes in the country, has a lot of great bands.

I don't know if it like, churns out bands, because like...I mean...I don't know, I guess to an outsider, I guess it does seem like there's a ton of bands from around here, but at the same time there's not that many bands so it seem like when bands come around that are going off, or doing their thing or making a name for themselves it kind of brings more attention to the city...whereas like if it didn't happen, no one would really know that there was a strong scene here. There is though, and I think Philly is just like an easy place to identify with as far as like "oh it's hardcore, it's Philly," kind of has a certain ring to it. And like, a lot of out-of-state kids, like South Jersey kids call it their scene - even though they have a scene...but I don't know. Philly is just like...you love it and hate it all at the same time. There's things I hate about it, but some of the things I hate I end up embracing and in turn you end up loving. It's where I'm from, it's where we're from, I was born and raised here, so it just feels different. When I'm at a show here compared to somewhere else, it doesn't have the same vibe. I'm home man, it just feels that way, it's just totally different. I like it, I like that you don't get that feeling from other shows.

I know you guys are on Deathwish, which is probably in terms of like, hardcore or "underground" labels or whatever you want to call it is about as "major" as you can get...not in terms of attitude but in terms of like, size and selling power.

Yeah.

It definitely gets shit out there a lot more. Do you think that exposure and easy mainstream accessibility is good or bad for hardcore?

Yeah, definitely. It's a great label, I mean they've been there for us every step of the way. They've supported everything this band has ever wanted to do, and you don't really find many labels like that in hardcore. I've heard horror stories from other bands on other labels, and I'm not going to namedrop any labels or bands, but you know, I've been around, I've heard stories. If Deathwish did some shit like that, dude...so fast I'd just be totally turned off on hardcore and being in a band after being on one of those labels. But those bands, they stick it out because they have to, because they sign these contracts with these crazy labels and they sign their lives away in the process. But yeah, Deathwish is awesome. They're willing to work with us on every level.

I feel like I should clarify my question a little bit. The fact that you can get Deathwish stuff on iTunes, or buy the new Cold World DVD at Hot Topic, do you think that kind of accessibility kind of...dilutes things a little bit? Does that make sense?

Yeah, I know what you're saying. Yo, you know what? It's 2007. Maybe like, eight years ago or shit like that, that'd probably be weird. Like back then it'd be like "oh man, this punk or hardcore band, it's so weird, you can see their shit at like, Hot Topic or Best Buy" or something like that. It'd probably have been weird....(at this point the interview gets interrupted again) thanks for being in the interview.

But it's 2007 now. It's the internet age. Most kids get records on iTunes because they don't have to leave their house. So it's like, I think it's just like one of those things that people kind of accept now. I don't think it necessarily takes away from what hardcore is, or what a label is, and stuff. It's kind of weird to explain and somewhat hard to understand to people who might not really like know...I think that's the age we live in now, it's kind of natural. As long as all the labels and all the bands do it the right way and it's not like, cheesy or exposed or whatever...you've got to get your music out there to people, that's the only way people are going to hear it.

Well, hey. It was a great show. Thanks for the time. Come back to Peoria anytime.

Yeah man, no problem. We'll be back there.


http://imwithblacklisted.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/blacklisted
http://www.deathwishinc.com

OiNK Is Dead...And I Couldn't Care Less

Once again, school has gotten in the way of keeping this thing updated as much as I would like, and for that I will voluntarily catch a huge late pass on finally writing about the demise of the invite-only BitTorrent music site known as OiNK.

I got an OiNK invite around July, and it was, at the time, one of the happiest musical days of my life. I remember referring to OiNK as the "Music Downloading Valhalla," and other such nonsense. I worked my way up to the original 10GB pre-ratio download limit relatively fast. Once I slowed down the downloading to preserve my ratio, though, I started to miss OiNK less and less, and started relying on other websites for my lawbreaking needs (Albumbase, Sordo, Deek, ANR blog, etc...).

I think part of my beef with OiNK was the fact that it was geared so heavily towards such a geeky audiophile crowd. Yes, 128kbps obviously sounds worse than 320, or V0, or whatever...but is it really such an awful thing to allow? I've never been one to complain about bitrates. Mp3s are such a lossy format as it, why complain if you shit is only slightly less lossy than something else?

And all those FLAC nerds...don't even get me started. There is no way all those people have the stereo equipment necessary to really tell the difference...and I'm wondering just how big their hard drives are in order to store such a massive file format.

Really, it was just the general holier-than-thou attitude that purveyed the entire operation that got on my nerves. Some people would say that this just guarantees that there aren't things like "shitty rips" or whatever clogging up the servers, but I would argue that it just prevents people (like myself, on occasion) from sharing something they know will be enjoyed because of a fear of missing one of the requisite hoops that needed to be jumped through. It took me a while to start posting my owns rips on OiNK, mostly because of the absolutely insanely complex "How To Rip" tutorial that was presented on the site - which involved downloading a third-party ripper, encoding with LAME, and other such nonsense. In the end, I finally just said "Fuck this" and ripped around 10 CDs with iTunes and posted them...with no complaints.

Yes, the content was great. But did I find everything I was looking for? Fuck no. The only thing I ever used OiNK for was mainstream leaks, and relatively obscure (in the mainstream sense) hardcore or late 90s screamo. Was it nice to find the Chairshot Politics EP on there? Yes. But where was Powerbomb Anthems? I'll enjoy the Neil Perry and Jerome's dream discographies and all the other things that I obtained, but it just really wasn't all that much better than, say, Albumbase in my opinion.

The fallout in the internet community from this bust has been insane. So many of these people are truly, deeply convinced that they are doing absolutely nothing wrong that it just blows my mind. Let's face it: OiNK was an illegal site, taking users donations to help upkeep servers on which they exchanged copyrighted material, illegally. To continue using the site, you had to keep your share ratio up - in other words, enable others to steal as well. It's an incredibly brazenly illegal thing to do. I download music...a lot of music. If something is especially good, I go out and buy it once I can afford it (recent purchases: Stierkampf - (He's A) Grunge Whore + 4 and Gogogo Airheart - Real Live Kill...Ripe From the Vine). I realize what I'm doing is illegal, I just don't really care.

What is truly amazing to me about this whole thing is how committed some of these former OiNK users are to the idea that the recording industry/the concept of copyright/the concept of intellectual property is just completely totally fucked up and wrong. Guess what people? You are not changing the recording industry. No matter how morally or philosophically right what you think you're doing is...it isn't. It's stealing, and I don't feel any damn sympathy for myself or anyone else who has been locked out of downloading that new Deerhoof record because OiNK is down.

Go buy some music. It's what I'm doing this weekend.

Alcest "Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde": Gorgeous

Originally, I was going to write this entry about not only this band, but another French metal project called Blut Aus Nord. Since the two are barely connectible, I decided to let the other one wait for another day - they're equally worthy of my praise, just not right now.

With the absolutely inane amount of post-rock bands clogging the music universe right now, it takes a lot for a band with that general sound to jump out and really make something not only incredibly beautiful, but also innovative. There's a lot of crap out there that follows one of the two standard post-rock formulas of "long crescendo" or "pretty then heavy," and even the genre's visual aesthetic seems to be getting a bit worn...lots of dudes with beards.

What Alcest has done is bring something new to the table in combining two genres that, at first glance, seem relatively incompatible, but upon further inspection, seem to work together in a way that is pretty close to perfect. Alcest is based in Avignon, France, and was originally formed as a rather straightforward black metal band. Vocalist Neige eventually tired of the rather narrow realm of possibilities traditional black metal offered, and Alcest became what it is now: a one-man black metal/shoegaze hybrid.

"Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde" sounds like a meeting between Slowdive and Burzum, essentially, and even that description doesn't quite do the sound perfect justice. The songwriting certainly errs more on the side of shoegaze or post rock, with dreamy vocals that sound more than a little reminiscent of Neil Halstead and airy instrumentation. There are several moments, however, when the band's black metal roots shine through - the occasional double-bass fills (which are never overstated), the treble-filled guitar tone, the foreboding and plodding intro to "Sur l'autre rive je t'attendrai," the borderline baroque sounding "Tir Nan Og." Black metal has always had the ability to be a beautiful genre musically, and there are many acts who have been able to take it into that realm - Burzum, Emperor and Shining spring to mind - but this record takes the gentler aspects of black metal and brings them together with a genre that seems almost tailor-fit for them, and makes a great, great fucking record.

This isn't really a black metal record, obviously, but I'd definitely put it in a branch incredibly close to it on the family tree. This is an absolutely beautiful record, and I'd recommend it to any metal fan looking for something a little more ambient...or someone who really, really misses Slowdive. Check it out for yourself at http://www.myspace.com/alcestmusic .

Overall....9/10