Nihilistics Interview, circa 1982
From the fanzine Violin Outbreak
As mentioned here previously, Nihilistics interviews ran in a few fanzines back when the band first emerged in the early 1980s. Some are lost to time, others are on the internet. While tracking down what’s out there in order to run them in NIHILISTIC, I realized the most extensive (read: longest) Nihilistics interview in the fanzine Violin Outbreak was unavailable online. Until now. What was Violin Outbreak? The publisher–Tony “Autoharp” Arena–explains his labor of love’s odd title in this Brob Tilt’s Zine World quote:
I started doing my zine in October 1981 (I was just a teenager at the time) under the name Violent Outbreak. At the time hardcore punk music was being called a new music explosion, so I looked up the word “explosion” in the dictionary and it said “a violent outbreak.” Later, by issue 6, I was tired of seeing violence at punk shows so I changed the name to Violin Outbreak to disassociate my zine from/protest against the violence I was seeing in the NYHC scene, partially because it was a funnier name. My motivation was to just write about the music I loved and promote things I thought were good. It was about all kinds of music, but mostly punk and hardcore. I interviewed some obscure bands such as The Headlickers, The Misguided, Artificial Peace, Nihilistics, Lone Wolves and The Ultra 5.
–Tony Arena
We’ll ignore the modifier “obscure” for now and provide some backstory. The Violin Outbreak interview took place Saturday, September 11, 1982 behind The Fillmore, a Long Island rock club pivoting to punk rock/hardcore (like the nearby Malibu Beach Club–also in Lido Beach–and others) and soon to be renamed Network (likely due to a cease & desist letter from the Fillmore East). In a coup for Nihilistics, we opened for Vice Squad, an on-the-rise punk band formed in Bristol, England in 1979 and fronted by bleached blonde Beki Bondage on vocals/guitar. Vice Squad had just been signed to EMI and were on their first (and last: Beki left the group upon return to England) US Tour (the band reformed with a new lineup circa 1999 and again toured the US). Here’s what Paul Bearer of Sheer Terror recalls about the venue and gig:
The Fillmore turned into Network. Both had a few shows…Discharge, Exploited, Damned, Upstarts. I was at the Vice Squad show, but they wouldn’t let me in because I was too young. I talked to you guys after you played, out back. I remember Mike being especially vocal in his dismay of the show/Vice Squad’s attitude: “We were lied to!”
–Paul Bearer
I asked Paul what Mike meant by “We were lied to!” and he replied “Dunno. Maybe he expected a sort of kinship with them?” Ho boy. Leave it to Mike to be disappointed. In my memory, the show was sold out, the venue packed, and most of us figured we were on the cusp of “the big time” as the entire band gathered around Tony’s tape recorder. About that: here’s an edited version of Tony Arena’s reply when I messaged him, asking if the tape might still exist:
Nice to hear from you Chris! That interview we did with Nihilistics in 1982 remains the most intense interview that Violin Outbreak zine ever did. You opened for Vice Squad. The contrast was stark: a gritty, real, straightforward, barebones NY hardcore band vs. an all leathered up & studded, dyed-hair third wave brit-punk band who displayed all the uniform cliches that scene had to offer. We actually walked out on Vice Squad before their set was over. They looked like phony goofballs next to the Nihilistics. As luck would have it, I still have the audio cassette of the Nihilistics interview. In fact, while going though old cassettes, I actually saw it recently! I noticed it was taped on a cheap cassette, so I am not sure if it still works, but if it does, I will digitize it and put the audio on my YouTube page and then send you the link to it.
–Tony Arena
From what I can find online, the club was still known as The Fillmore on September 11, 1982. I’d just turned 20 six days prior, which may or may not contextualize my stupid and egregious use of the anti-gay slur “homos” (I’m especially chagrined, learning that Tony subsequently became a gay activist). It’s no excuse but growing up on Long Island in the 1970s, one absorbed homophobia, misogyny, racism and anti-semitism via ignorant osmosis, regurgitating these horrific attitudes at will as easily as Mike (Nihilistics lyricist/bassist) would puke his McDonald’s on stage. I’ve struggled with whether or not to edit this interview, run it “warts & all” or not at all. But building a historical record of the Nihilistics means embracing the band’s entirety while also confronting my moronic 20 year-old self in all his Lawn Guyland awfulness. Obviously, I’m not the same person I was 42 years ago (though I unfortunately DO recognize much of myself in this interview) and, given a time machine, would gladly travel back to my teenage to yell some sense into proto-Chris.
Okay, enough preamble… except for three more points:
This interview was an absolute NIGHTMARE to transform from its original state (see the pictures below). I initially tried scanning the pertinent pages of my copy of Violin Outbreak, in an attempt to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to capture the text. That approach was a complete failure due to the tiny font combined with Tony’s cut-&-paste-at-odd-angles layout. Then I tried opening images of the pages in Adobe PhotoShop to straighten out the text so I could copy it. But the erratic Xerox’d nature of the original precluded THAT solution. I then began typing out the interview, realizing 3 hours later I’d only completed a page and a half and it’d take another 6 or 7 hours for the entirety. I finally hit upon the idea of recording the remainder of the interview into Adobe Audition, dumping the audio file into Adobe Premiere Pro (can you tell I subscribe to the Creative Cloud suite?) to utilize its excellent speech-to-text transcribe function. In under a minute I had a fairly accurate transcription (this is one application of AI I can get behind), requiring minimal fixing.
The interview has been edited for grammar/punctuation and clarity.
By September 1982 the Nihilistics had been around roughly 3 years (initially, it was me and Mike–high school juniors–with Ron joining a year or so later, then Troy coming aboard in 1981) and Mike began to assert himself as the band’s de facto spokesperson. I distinctly recall him wanting to dominate this interview, ultimately taking an adversarial stance with me, especially. Mike was an expert at ridicule and doesn’t hold back here when I say something he thinks is off the mark. This tendency of Mike’s to belittle fellow band members in the presence of others would worsen until I became reluctant to express my own thoughts and opinions around “outsiders” for fear of incurring Mike’s withering put-downs. Mike often spoke of being unwilling to “Suffer fools” and that could include even his closest friends, if they had the temerity to disagree.
VIOLIN OUTBREAK NIHILISTICS INTERVIEW
by Tony Arena
The most serious, perhaps most committed New York band (not in an asylum sense), is Long Island’s NIHILISTICS. Onstage they can only be described as intense! After talking with them before one of their “gigs” (at the Fillmore w/Vice Squad in Sept.) we felt the power and thought behind their words, and we listened to their honest opinions about the “pits” of everyday life. Understand that the NIHILISTICS are very real and offer a very personal brand of music. Their debut 45 is excellent, but to see them live is to get the full and total experience of nothing. Each band member has their own personality but basically with the same thoughts on life and what it eventually leads to… D E A T H !! Each band member apparently lead tortured lives and relate to their music as a form of therapy. So sit back in your “comfy” lounge chair and read. Let the NIHILISTICS own words teach you something about life, something you’ve been trying to escape for many years. Face the truth, whether you like it or not, we’re all going to DIE sometime.
VO: The New York Thrash bio says you believe that you’re headed for early and untimely graves. What do you think is the most important thing for you to do before your death?
MIKE: NOTHING. (Laughter) There is nothing to do before our deaths. Absolutely nothing.
VO: But why are you doing what you are doing now?
MIKE: Well, on the New York Thrash bio, it’s the only thing TO do. It’s like therapy, the band is a form of therapy like going to a shrink except we can say what we want and our personalities are coming out in the music.
RON: Our music is not for the audience, it’s basically for ourselves.
VO: What do you think of the crowd?
CHRIS: The crowd on Long Island?
VO: The people who were here last night? (Misguided/False Prophets show at the Fillmore)
CHRIS: A lot of them are real empty headed, incredibly stupid.
VO: Like the people who stalk around… (pre-fab-headshaven–VIOLENCE SEEKERS)
CHRIS: Yeah, but I don’t want people to turn around and say Listen, that’s your audience. It’s great that they come down and things, but I get the feeling that many of them never spent time with a book or…
MIKE: It’s just more media fed stuff, it’s media hype, media telling them how to dress, what to do, it’s like follow the leader. A glorified game of follow the leader. Who’s in the limelight? Black Flag? Do what Black Flag does! Ian MacKaye? Do what Ian MacKaye does! Okay? It’s follow the leader.
CHRIS: If people on Long Island really wanted to get an identity or scene of their own, they should do exactly that, try to establish their own identity., Because you get the feeling that many of them copy what Manhattan does, they copy what LA does.
MIKE: People from Manhattan say Manhattan copies from every place else… Boston. It’s getting ridiculous!
CHRIS: It’s getting so washed down you can’t even take a guy seriously anymore. People walk around with bandannas around their boots and shit like that, ‘cause you know that they think this is how they’re supposed to dress when they never even thought about what they want to do.
MIKE: Let’s face it, for a lot of people it’s just fun, that’s it. They don’t want to go any deeper than that, it’s fun to shave their heads and they think they’re belonging in some sort of secret order. But it is as trendy as wearing a Ramones button and red pants. It’s just a trend. And who’s to judge what’s trendy? It’s just the difference of what’s the trend–FOLLOW THE TREND!
VO: Instead of all these individual cliques, don’t you think we should all unite; instead having one scene?
RON: Me personally, I don’t wanna to be associated with any one person, for any cause.
MIKE: It’s funny because there’s no way to unite. I can’t unite.
VO: Then what are you trying to say in your music?
MIKE: THERE’S NO WAY I CAN UNITE. There’s no way I can unite. Even the most staunch hardcore-uh-anarchy-unity-peace-uh-punk–whatever you want to call them. I really… I have something in common but I don’t have all that much in common..
CHRIS: This is a very personal thing with us, more than anyone else’s band could be, because it grew out of ourselves! There is no way we can take other people in and say Unite with us, this is what we believe because we don’t give a shit about the other people… it’s just us!
MIKE: I don’t want to preach, I don’t care about preaching. It’s our insight. It’s what we see, what we report on is our everyday existence. What we report is what we write songs about.
VO: Why do you think your deaths will be untimely?
MIKE: Because every day more misery mounts, every day is more things of bad luck. I don’t know if it’s bad luck, I don’t have the answers for everybody, and that’s why I don’t preach. All this reflects is my life, my miserable fucking horrible life.
RON: Mike, you have insight.
MIKE: Yeah, into myself. We have a few really good fans that travel all over to see us because they can identify what it’s all about. You know a lot of people dismiss life, and say Gee, everything’s not so bad, things can turn around.
CHRIS: It’s more than a band, it’s a way of life.
MIKE: Like it says (in the New York Thrash bio), it’s a theology into itself. It’s in its own corner. It’s not hardcore, it’s not anything. It’s just there, it’s a way of life.
Worker opens back door of the club…
WORKER: Troy!
TROY: Yeah, what?
WORKER: Telephone!
TROY: Telephone?
MIKE: If that’s Gillian and Ugly Kevin, they’re on the guest list.
TROY: Wait ‘til I come back.
LATER…
MIKE: I don’t know if you think I’m insane or something like that…
VO: No, I think you are making strong points about life, and that you are intelligent.
MIKE: It’s so hard to explain. the futility of it all is that there is no purpose, no scope. It’s ultimate bland, it’s ultimate nothing. A big blank space! It’s life. Maybe it’s just my life. There is no place you can get insight like that but in a graveyard. (Mike works in a graveyard.)
VO: Do you get any pleasure out of all this? Is this the only pleasure that you have?
MIKE: It depends. At times I can really feel the intense hatred in songs… You’re To Blame, Badge Of Shame is one of my favorites. I can really identify. A new song of ours called Pal O’Mine is about death… and oh, if I can really get into it, I feel furious. Then I enjoy myself ‘cause I can get out my hostilities. BUT if it’s a night when I really don’t feel good, and I’m tired, then I’ll just play the music and won’t really derive much out of it.
CHRIS: Another thing with our band is that it takes total commitment. You just can’t come to this casually and say Ah, nice song, nice melody, good words and stuff like that ‘cause then it wont do anything for you, not anything at all. But if you are able to apply it to your personal life somehow, then use it as some way of either helping yourself out... ‘cause I know we have lots of problem when we write songs… and the lyrics they come right from the heart. After we read them back, and we are able to form it, and sing it, then we are able to see where the problems lie. It’s a form of self-analysis, like Mike was saying before. A lot of bands just want to preach, trying to get people to change. But what we do is preach to ourselves, and try to get ourselves to change for better or worse.
MIKE: Well, I don’t think I will ever change. I’m not even trying to get myself to change, I’m very happy. For a while I really tried to turn things around, saying Well, gee, things aren’t so bad, let me try to do this, let me try to do that. Just recently I fell back into the truth I had gotten away from. I had escaped the truth for awhile and said Well, gee, things aren’t so bad. But there is no way around the truth, no escape from it. It will come back and haunt you, while you’re sitting alone in your room or while you’re walking down the street.
TROY: Good things always come to an end.
MIKE: If you have good things to begin with! The thing to do is to not expect too much from life and not get too excited when good things happen, because they only get shot down. And don’t get excited when death or other misery occurs so it won’t have a great effect on you. Just stay constant so life won’t hurt you as much, it will dehumanize you, but it will life much easier to cope with.
VO: Why is there so much emphasis on death and dying in your music?
MIKE: That’s all there is, that’s the final! Death is the most awesome power. It is the only thing in life that is unconquerable. A man can amass a fortune, he can make money on Wall Street, a many can do anything that he wants to do, BUT all of his or her accomplishments will come to the grave! No matter what we do and how we do it DEATH will always be the end result.
VO: Do you believe in an after life?
MIKE: No!
VO: NO!
MIKE: I don’t believe in it at all.
RON: It’s like the song After Death… you rot in the mud.
TROY: You sure do.
MIKE: Religion is a whole other thing. I’m not a believer in religion. There are two ways of looking at it, believing for the sake of believing, or thinking because when you die you feel you were going to go somewhere. I feel that I am a good person. Other people think I’m either evil or fucking crazy. But I’m not EVIL and I’m not CRAZY! I am a very good person, a very moral person, but I don’t believe in God. IF there is a God then I’m surprised. And if do have to get judged then they will open the book and judge me for what I am, and I am not a bad person. I don’t take drugs, I don’t cause trouble, I’m just myself.
VO: I figure You’re to Blame is about how people blame their own problems on everyone else. But people who just don’t bother to read lyrics and comprehend them would think that you are blaming the public for your personal problems.
CHRIS: (Laughter) They got it right!
RON: That’s true.
CHRIS: How’d they figure that one out?
VO: One of the problems the Sex Pistols had was a misunderstanding between the band and their fans; the band and the general public; and the band and the media. There seemed to be a great communication gab in which people idolized and ionized and dressed like them to which the Pistols actually hated. You have said you wouldn’t mind being a popular group but what are you going to do to educate your fans and the media and the general public so that you are not misunderstood?
MIKE: There’s nothing to do to educate your fans. Real fans are fans that feel. There’s a guy coming down tonight, the guy is 30 years old–a real down and out character who’d never look anyone in the eye. Everyone thinks he’s a real dick, a real scumbag, BUT the guy is a nice guy, a sincere guy. What the guy knows you could never teach anyone. You have to either feel it or experience it yourself.
CHRIS: Yeah. There’s a lot of people that come down to the shows that really like us or really hate us. But we are not looking for either one. We just want to be understood. We want people to understand, but not just what we are trying to do, we want to them to understand what we are. Don’t come down and say They’re not fast enough to dance to or They’re not slow enough to dance to or any other stupid remark you might have because we’re not interested. We don’t care what you think, we don’t care at all! If we fucking cared about what people think, man, I’d get upset and say, Ah, come on, what do you mean you don’t like it, what’s wrong with us?
MIKE: If we were concerned about what people thought the first three gigs would’ve crushed us. Coming from Long Island, we played Max’s, all of those clubs, and all we heard was a bunch of people with mohicans yelling Faster… faster! Hey, FUCK YOU, man! They threw stuff at us and now half the people that said we sucked and hated us are now coming to the show and saying Those guys are OK, they’re pretty cool.
CHRIS: It’s more than just music. What pisses me off is people just look at the music and say Ah, I don’t like the music. They never bother to think what is behind it.
MIKE: But notice how many fast bands are falling into the woodwork. There is only so much you can do with three chords.
CHRIS: And a lot of them can’t even fit three because they are going too fast.
MIKE: Come on, put on that FLEX YOUR HEAD thing, everything’s the same, everything sounds the same basically. A lot of fast bands are just falling into the woodwork. We play very fast but we also mix it up for ourselves. It is just for ourselves and that’s all!
VO: How important do you think offending and shocking people is?
CHRIS: We don’t try to offend anyone.
MIKE: I don’t go out of my way to offend people.
RON: Do we look offensive?
MIKE: If people find it offensive that’s their bag you know.
RON: It makes me feel good, having some impact on people… good or bad.
MIKE: But why should I care about offending them, they don’t help at all.
CHRIS: The only reason we get upset with people is when they act like assholes! A couple of nights when we played people were tromping all over the stage and stepping all over my stuff and pulling out cords and I’m supposed to say Ah, that’s OK guys. I really appreciate you jumping all over my shit?! Of course not! I’m gonna say Get the hell away from me! One night some guy spit beer all over my guitar. Now this is a guitar I got as a gift from a friend and this guy is spitting beer all over it!
MIKE: He (Ron) got hit in the head with a beer can. Some idiot at the Peppermint Lounge threw a beer can and slices his ear… he needed five stitches to close it… it’s all on videotape. (EDITOR’S NOTE: WHO HAS THAT VIDEOTAPE?!) Why should we have to endure this abuse? We are not bad people. I’m not out to destroy anyone’s life.
CHRIS: If this is what they consider their entertainment then should fucking treat us that way!
MIKE: What they should do is just prop up a mirror and throw things at themselves because they are the cause of everything.
CHRIS: It would be better if people would just sit down in chairs and listen. I get the impression many times when these people are dancing around as fast as they can, banging their heads up against the walls, that they don't care what is being said.
VO: If you watch them, then they do the same thing all the time.
MIKE: They don't care what you are singing about. You could be singing about a nursery rhyme for all they know.
CHRIS: They should sit all the people down in chairs and if anyone gets up and gets rambunctious, they should throw a gun at them. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Huh?!) People will sit back and say, “Oh yeah, but that's a communistic state.” But I bet those kids would come back with a better understanding of what is going on. It's better than if they were running around smashing their heads up against the wall.
MIKE: Which defeats everything. Half the people with anarchy on their jackets. What is that? What are they talking about?
RON: They don't even know what the word means.
CHRIS: But I think we should clear up one thing once and for all. Since you guys are from a Long Island fanzine, right? You live in Massapequa and stuff?
VO: Well, West Hempstead. Franklin Square.
CHRIS: All right. Well, the whole thing about Long Island is that when we came out, when we first started playing, it was always, Oh, they’re from Long Island. They suck. I’m not going to see them. They’re from Long Island.
RON: A lot of clubs wouldn't book us.
CHRIS: No Long Island clubs would book us.
MIKE: Except that place where there was that fire. Exit 13.
CHRIS: Anyhow, the problem is still where people from Manhattan say, they're from Long Island. They're all rich. They all live in nice houses and all have nice families. Nice parents. I find it all totally offensive.
VO: Do you think if you become popular that didn't book you before would start booking you?
MIKE: Absolutely.
CHRIS: And we'll play because we need the money.
RON: And they'll pay top dollar.
CHRIS: There's nothing like the almighty dollar.
RON: It's not like we're going to make a big profit or anything. We just want to get them back.
VO: To cover your expenses.
RON: Getting them back.
CHRIS: Yeah, that's a very good point. There's nothing better than the satisfaction.
RON: Because that's where it really hurts the people anyway. Is in their fucking wallets.
MIKE: You know, if a little action can be caused, if a little riot happens, it's no big deal. Just a little excitement for us and gives us something to talk about instead of everyone else's dirty laundry and gossip.
VO: Is Love & Kisses a song about necrophilia?
MIKE: No.
RON: Not really.
MIKE: That whole thing is a true story about some guy.
VO: What is. I'm going to do it to you while you're kind of fresh?
MIKE: A true story about this guy. He (Ron) used to know.
VO: Oh, is this from the graveyard?
MIKE: No. Ron used to work as a morgue attendant and heard this story. What, about six years ago?
RON: No less than that. Two years ago.
MIKE: So it is, in part, a true story. It’s…
CHRIS: Know what the song is about? It's about three minutes long.
EVERYONE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
MIKE: The story does have humor to it.
RON: We find it funny.
MIKE: Yeah, it has a sense of humor and…
CHRIS: Isn't it about the guy whose mother died and he kept her on the couch because he didn't want to believe that she was dead?
RON: That's it.
CHRIS: And he kept her there and used to feed her. And she had oatmeal dribbling down her mouth.
VO: What was the it being done while she's still kind of fresh?
MIKE: I guess it could be. Yeah, I guess it is necrophilia if he…
RON: It's not about me. I don't want to participate in any sex acts at all. I abstain from it all.
CHRIS: The last four lines of the song tell it all: Mommy. Why did you die? The guy couldn't come to terms with his mom being dead.
MIKE: Let's clear it up once and for all. It's not about our sick sense of humor. It's a sense of humor we found funny from that guy's story.
CHRIS: I find everyone else's tragedy hilarious because it is not mine.
MIKE: But let's clear things up. It's a true story that we found funny.
CHRIS: I read about disasters every day, and I call Mike up every day to tell him about them. I told you Vic Morrow got his head chopped off from the helicopter. We were making jokes.
MIKE: It's humorous. Black humor.
CHRIS: It's great. It's the ultimate laugh. Laughing at death. Because sooner or later it is going to come and take us all.
RON: Then we'll really laugh.
CHRIS: If you can't laugh at it now, then when are you supposed to laugh at it? When you're in your grave? It doesn't work that way.
VO: Then it will be too late.
CHRIS: Yeah. Too late. It's too late now.
VO: Would you say your band was formed out of anger?
MIKE: Anger. Hatred. Frustration is a good word. Hatred and frustration.
VO: Frustration against what?
MIKE: Society. Naturally.
CHRIS: The fact is that we can't get anywhere. And not with the band, with our own personal lives. Today, how many bad things happened to me? Boom boom boom in a row like that?
MIKE: That was petty stuff. I'm talking large scale.
CHRIS: There is a movie called Little Murders, and it is about a man that eventually went berserk because every day he had little things happen to him. Little things that add up after a while.
MIKE: But after the little things, they go for the big things.
CHRIS: You go out in the morning and maybe there's a couple of people waiting outside for you.
MIKE: Who?
CHRIS: Then you go to work, and some guy comes over to your boss and says you're not doing well, and they're going to fire you. How much pressure can you stand after a while?
MIKE: Pressure. Frustration and hatred. Those three words sum it up.
RON: You get us.
MIKE: And fear.
RON: Oh, yeah.
VO: How is your record selling?
MIKE/RON: Very good.
VO: Here and in Europe?
MIKE: Very good in Europe. Good in California.
VO: How did you go about arranging the sale of your record in Europe?
MIKE: Through a distributor. They handle all that stuff.
VO: You didn't go there or anything?
RON: No.
CHRIS: I can't even afford to get home tonight.
EVERYONE: Ha ha ha ha ha!
CHRIS: No one is getting rich, believe me.
VO: How do you feel about doing interviews with fanzines?
MIKE: Good. I'm glad it's a cohesive one. I hate when they stick a tape recorder in front of your face and just say, talk, because that has happened to…
CHRIS: We usually don't get questions. We get…
MIKE: Just talk. You get a bunch of nonsense. And when it comes time to discover who said what or what's being said, everything gets lost and sounds like shit.
CHRIS: There are people that look at our interviews and say, your interviews are too serious. They center around death all the time. What else are we going to talk about? Making Daffy Duck jokes?
MIKE: Talk about your skateboard. Talk about being a skate punk.
CHRIS: Is that what they are?
RON: If they don't like us personally, then don’t come to see us. If they don't like our music, don't come to see us.
CHRIS: Do you know what I heard from someone in New York? I won't go see them because they don't come to New York to watch the bands. That's why they wouldn't come out to see us play.
RON: Fine.
CHRIS: Fuck you. Who needs them?
MIKE: Good. If you don't want to come, then don't come. Don't buy the record. Don't listen to us. If it's going to annoy you that much, then fuck you.
CHRIS: People keep trying to suck us into this unity thing. If you want unity, go fucking join the Teamsters.
VO: Do you think your band has unity?
CHRIS: Among us.
VO: Between the four of you.
MIKE: It's cohesive.
RON: We wouldn't be here tonight.
CHRIS: We get along.
MIKE: With a band like this, it's very hard to find members. You've got to either be with it or not. It's intense. You have to either feel or there is no way you can survive.
VO: Did you form out of a musical interest or a theological interest?
MIKE: Theological. It all started by writing a few songs sitting at Hofstra University. Chris and I sitting in his basement.
CHRIS: The infamous Grandmas Are Made For Kicking.
MIKE: And then Ronnie. And varied drummers.
VO: What happened to your old drummers?
MIKE: They all got kicked out.
CHRIS: One got cold feet in the opposite direction
EVERYONE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
MIKE: One is in the surprise corner at Modell’s.
CHRIS: Yeah, you can go find him down there in the surprise corner.
MIKE: Another guy has got a poodle haircut and leather pants.
CHRIS: He's crying into his bandana
MIKE: And another guy's a heroin addict.
CHRIS: The infamous Al from Reagan Youth was once a drummer for about three weeks.
MIKE: Yeah. Al drummed twice.
RON: He was the original.
VO: How did you get Troy?
MIKE: Chris knew a friend.
CHRIS: I went to this guy. I worked with, Adam March, and asked him if he knew of any drummers in Lindenhurst. He told me about Troy and this girl, Donna. We tried both of them out and decided Donna wasn't for us.
MIKE: She's a good drummer. But…
CHRIS: Because there were times when we wanted to be able to curse and we knew we couldn't do it without offending her. Plus, when you have a boyfriend hanging around and stuff like that, it gets to be pretty stupid.
MIKE: And Troy has such a cute smile.
CHRIS: And Troy offered us more money.
RON: And Troy has insight.
CHRIS: Yeah, he has insides. Whatever that means.
VO: Do you think this so-called hardcore movement is self-destructive?
CHRIS: I hope it is.
RON: There is no movement.
MIKE: I don't feel there is any hardcore movement at all. I really don't. The ultimate hard core is the stuff coming out of Washington, D.C., the stuff that minor threat formulated that's hard, hardcore, pure, hardcore. And I see no future for it. No future at all. Fast is great. We play a lot of fast songs, but we mix it up because fast gets boring and repetitious.
CHRIS: When you come to the realization that the only reason bands are playing fast is so people can dance to them, it's nothing more than a dance band.
RON: To satisfy the audience.
CHRIS: Exactly.
VO: Do you react to your audience?
RON: Yeah.
MIKE: Usually in a negative way, by either chastising them or by constantly getting into arguments with them.
VO: There are a lot of people that only come to hardcore shows to show off their new hairdos and pick fights. What do you say to these violence seekers, and are you doing anything to discourage these people from coming to your shows?
MIKE: We just said what we thought of them.
CHRIS: Yeah, I kicked a guy in the groin at CBGB's one time. He was getting over rambunctious.
MIKE: People that come to see us know what to expect.
CHRIS: At some show one time, I think it was My Father's Place, some guy said Oh, why wasn't it more violent? Why weren't you yelling stuff at the girls? Why weren't you hitting people? It's not like we go out there and do it. It's just a reaction. We're not going to begrudge people and say Start something with me so I can hit you. It's only when they're being assholes. It comes down to the new macho thing, to a lot of guys. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. They climb up on stage and jump all over your shit. They knock into you, like I said earlier. Who needs it?
MIKE: That's what disco is all about. A bunch of macho guys showing off, seeing who's tough. So instead of having fluffy hairdos, they have no hair.
CHRIS: Instead of white suits, they got no hair and bandanas all over.
MIKE: What's the difference?
CHRIS: There is none.
MIKE: Really?
VO: What do each of you feel when you are on stage?
MIKE: Nothing. If I'm into it, I feel great exhortation in the anger that I portraying the music. I feel great pleasure in relieving me.
VO: Troy?
TROY: I get out a lot of frustration.
MIKE: What about you, Ron?
RON: Sometimes I get caught up in the songs. Sometimes I feel intense hatred. I don't get carried away. I don't jump around or anything like that. Because that's not how I am. I feel sincere in what I. What I am doing.
CHRIS: What I feel is the pinnacle of what we've been working for all this time, to go out there and be able to do it. When we are out there playing, that's the zenith. What we were meant to do. If it's a good night and you could hear yourself, because usually the sound system stinks and you can't hear anyone. But if it's a good night and you can hear everyone, then that's great. I get mad when bands come together and play like absolute shit. They play real fast and go, we're going to play real fast because it doesn't matter if we play like shit, because the people only came here to dance anyway. They're only fooling themselves.
VO: Just noise.
CHRIS: Yeah. The new bands coming out of New York. I'm talking about the very new bands, but I saw some that were so fucking horrible I couldn't believe that they were taking the people's money. I could get a couple of monkeys to bang on drums and it would sound better than that.
TROY: Disco and hardcore are both like the same thing. It's like an in and out thing.
CHRIS: You can find the same people in both disco. People are now becoming hard core people.
TROY: And then they eventually go back.
MIKE: We're latching on to the next trend, whatever that may be. Whatever is cool.
RON: Hopefully it might be death.
MIKE: Yeah. For ourselves and them.
CHRIS: What I really want to see is a plane crash. I've been waiting to see a plane crash.
VO: Are you guys happy?
MIKE: No.
CHRIS: And when we are, people begrudge us. They say Oh, you’re happy? What’s the matter with you? Even when we have a good day and when we are smiling, people say Why are you smiling? So we can't even have that.
VO: What makes you happy, if anything?
MIKE: Money.
CHRIS: A plane crash. A motel room with a TV. A bag of potato chips and a beer.
MIKE: A cup of coffee and a cigarette. Sitting around thinking that's happiness and not being bothered.
RON: To be left alone.
CHRIS: Just to live and not ask for anything. Not even $1 million or a beautiful car. No interaction with people.
MIKE: I could interact with people if they could just be human about it. If we just go back to the 1880s, when people actually gave a shit about how you feel and had a little common courtesy for everyone else.
CHRIS: That's it. I think you've hit the nail right on the head. Like that girl at Burger King got hit with a nail right on the head.
MIKE: I long for the day when people aren't so…
VO: Someone shot a nail into her head?
CHRIS: I wish I was there when that happened. They say she was squirming on the floor and people were demanding their money back.
VO: (Illegible)
MIKE: There's no place for us in this world. There's no place for us.
CHRIS: Well, you know where.
MIKE: Except the graveyard and alone in a room.
VO: Do you enjoy working at the graveyard?
MIKE: No, it's incredibly depressing. It's great to write songs there, but it does bad things to you and all sincerity. I don't recommend that you get a job there.
VO: In the song Kill Yourself, it says It seems so many are waking to the hard cold facts/That the color or their future is not rosy but black. And it also says There’s really no future to look forward to/It’s the only solution left for you/Kill yourself. Why do you think people should have to kill themselves instead of taking their future into their own hands and doing something to change it?
CHRIS: What can you do?
VO: Well, if everyone tried.
MIKE: What can you do? There's really nothing you can do.
CHRIS: People think things are going to get better. The problem today is that people are getting better with the amount of money they're making. They think if they get a better house or make 50,000 a year instead of 25,000, they'll have a better life. When actually it doesn't do anything for them. But give them a few extra toys to play with. They aren't leaving any mark. All the things they do don't add up to nothing.
MIKE: It adds up to eight numbers on your tombstone when you were born and when you died.
CHRIS: Wouldn't you like to know that when you died, you've accomplished something so people can open up a book and read that you've created a vaccine or something. Even David Berkowitz knows that when he dies, his name is going to be down in the book. He went on a murder spree, killed eight people, and for a year and a half had New York in an uproar. That's an accomplishment. Lee Harvey Oswald accomplished something with his life. He left his name in the book, the Big Book. There's nothing worse than just living a whole life and then dying. And that's it.
MIKE: If we can't achieve happiness, we've got to leave our mark. I'm sure if we quit the hardcore scene or whatever you want to lump us into if we quit tomorrow, I'm sure a lot of people and a lot of our fans would remember us. And there's other ground to cover. Maybe there's other things to do. Maybe I'm not sure what, but there are other things to do.
RON: Maybe.
CHRIS: Maybe.
MIKE: Except maybe sit in a room with a cup of coffee or something.
VO: Did any of you ever consider killing yourself?
RON: Yeah.
MIKE: Many times. The only thing that prevents me, even as we speak. Last night, I got a bit of terrible news once again. At the age of 20, I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders. And the only thing that prevents me is my own cowardiceness, my own yellowness.
CHRIS: I wrote a song called Hell. It was at the most depressed time in my life. I took out a pen and started writing these words, and it was basically why I couldn't come to terms with killing myself. I didn't even have enough strength to take out a razor blade or swallow pills.
MIKE: You couldn't even stand to see your own blood.
CHRIS: I couldn't take it. As soon as you're dead, it's going to mean nothing to anyone. You'd make someone guilty for a couple of months. Big deal. What's that going to do?
VO: I don't mean to encourage you to kill yourself, but if you don't believe in anything after death, why are you afraid?
CHRIS: I'd be afraid just because of the physical pain. The pain is too much. There's no real instant way to kill yourself. Whether you take a gun and put it to your head or slash your wrist, you're going to feel something.
MIKE: It's funny because one time a guy in the audience yelled out, why don't you kill yourself?Why don't you? Why doesn't he? He's in the same boat we are only he's too blind to realize it.
VO: What would you like someone to feel or think about as they leave one of your shows?
RON: Feel scared.
MIKE: Come to grips with their lousy 9 to 5 existence.
TROY: If people wake up.
CHRIS: How can we possibly reach some of these other people? People who live in Great Neck and a wonderful house, and who have a wonderful mummy and daddy, who buy them all sorts of things. Some of them are very happy living in their 9 to 5 world, serving under some boss’s fucking thumb. I'm a human being. I don't deserve to be a slave. My life is worth more than that. I could be a fucking slave for the rest of my life, and then get my fucking pension and then go wait and die in some room. I've had people come to my house and say, how can you complain? You've got a nice house and live in a nice neighborhood that has nothing to do with it. I could be living in the middle of some fucking mansion with everything I ever needed and still complain. I know just living in my house. My family is the worst bunch of people you'd ever want to meet. I wouldn't wish my mother on anyone or my brother for that matter. You may laugh, but there was one morning with Mike, three in the morning when she broke the door down like something out of a Boris Karloff movie.
MIKE: I hate to say anything against your mother, but man, oh, man, you would have had to been there to experience it. The horror of it. She broke in like a gargantua with the hair in this ripped nightgown on. It was horrible.
CHRIS: And all we were doing was laughing. We were going to make a horror movie about it.
MIKE: And when she started yelling at him, he crumpled on the floor in laughter.
CHRIS: I was laughing right at her. I was walking past her, laughing, and I kept thinking, she's going to hit me. She's going to hit me.
MIKE: We were laughing at three pigs dancing on this mass grave. It was pretty humorous.
CHRIS: Yeah, we had a picture of these guys dressed up in pig costumes from a costume book, and we cut them out and pasted in them on this picture of a Japanese mass grave. And it was pretty funny.
MIKE: These cartoon pigs dancing all over these dead, mutilated bodies. That was the heartiest laugh I ever enjoyed in my life. I swear I must have laughed for about an hour straight.
RON: We take snapshots of ourselves laid out in coffins.
CHRIS: Or burning dolls down in my basement.
MIKE: Or burning dolls. Or dragging them from cars.
CHRIS: Remember that doll that day? We had this doll of a little black girl. And…
RON: That was around the time when they were killing all those kids. Where was that?
MIKE: The Atlanta murders.
CHRIS: Yeah, around the time of the Atlanta murders.
RON: I was dragging it from the back of…
MIKE: And this lady screamed (falsetto) Stop, stop! She must have thought it was a real kid, but it was a pretty funny experience.
CHRIS: That was a pretty happy time.
RON: if you think we're prejudiced, we are just prejudiced against the entire human race.
MIKE: No, it's not prejudice against any race. It's just prejudiced against everybody. Not prejudice against any creed. Just prejudiced against people for what they are.
VO: Would you rather live a life of blindness and 24 hour happiness, or would you rather have the insight you have now?
MIKE: I think living like I am now will serve me much better. Usually people think like this when they're looking back on their lives. They get depressed when they get old because they haven't done anything. Maybe if they would realize this when they're 19 or 20 years old and would strive to get their feelings off their chest like the band, then it would all be worthwhile.
CHRIS: I think that young people should especially realize this. You have got to realize this before you turn 30 and know that all your life you've been working in a warehouse or driving a truck. I've heard a lot of people say, I've come all this way, and I haven't done a fucking thing yet. No matter what you want to do, even if it's the craziest fucking thing, if the kid says, I want to get enough money and go over to Switzerland near the fucking mountains, then he should do it, because that's what he really wants. Not because his mother tells him to get a good job in the post office.
TROY: Or LILCO?
CHRIS: Or LILCO. Go get a nice job. You'll be set up for life. Sure you'll be set for life. And when you turn around, when you're 40 or 50 and say to your wife Go get the gun from the nigh table, I want to kill myself, then you'll relate.
RON: We are locked up in a prison all our life. If you've got a house, you've got to pay for the fucking house.
TROY: it’s a jail sentence.
CHRIS: If it wasn't for the homos, I'd go to jail. They'd give you a nice meal. And…
RON: I think that's the reason you would go to jail.
TROY/MIKE: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MIKE: Put in the magazine Laugh, laugh.
CHRIS: Yeah. At this point, there was immense laughter. I swear, it's got to be a great place with the food and everything. A nice place to sleep for the night. Except you got all the homos.
MIKE: But it's not so great when some cop is hitting you in the back of your head, telling you to get into your cell. That's not so great.
CHRIS: I'm sure there are worse things than that outside of prison.
MIKE: Well, then why don't you commit a murder and go there?
CHRIS: I told you, I don't want to because of the homos. How about if I dress in drag and they send me to a women's prison?
EVERYONE: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MIKE: Why don't we drag you from the bumper of a car?
RON: Have you dressed in rags?
MIKE: How about we just drag you in the middle of the highway and leave you there?
CHRIS: We've gone off on a tangent. What else did you want to say?
VO: what do you think is the root of all this ignorance?
MIKE: It’s bad to face up to the truth.
RON: They're afraid to.
CHRIS: I'll say it in one word.
MIKE: Well, what's the word?
CHRIS: Education. No one has got a fucking good education anymore.
RON/MIKE: No, no, no!
CHRIS: Where do you think ignorance comes from?
MIKE: We're not talking about ignorance that you can add up two plus two. I'm talking about…
CHRIS: I know exactly what you're talking about.
MIKE: Well, then what? Education?
VO: You could be the most educated person and still be ignorant.
CHRIS: But don't you realize that…
MIKE: Sharon Meyers, for example (EDITOR’S NOTE: Sharon was our High School Valedictorian.)
CHRIS: Even going to high school, all it is, is a little community that gets you prepared for dealing with people. People like can't deal with high school. How are they going to deal with the real fucking world? High school is a piece of cake, and people fail to realize that. They sit there and say, I got a tough test.
MIKE: What did you ask again? I don't want to talk about high school.
VO: What is that? The root of ignorance?
MIKE: Chris, you think education is?
CHRIS: Mike, I was trying to make a point. If you let me finish the thought train I was on, I could have said something.
MIKE: (Laughing) I think you're off the rail. Okay. Go ahead. Fucking talk. Go ahead.
CHRIS: I'm trying to make the point that these kids today, especially now, if they can't deal with it at 18, then they are never going to deal with it at all. People have forgotten how to interact with others. Everyone walks around with a chip on their shoulder.
VO: I hear you are trying to help the unemployed in some way. Can you tell us some more about that?
MIKE: I'm not trying to help the unemployed.
CHRIS: Who's trying to help the unemployed?
VO: That's what Ron told us over the phone.
CHRIS: Ron, you're trying to help the unemployed?
RON: No, I'm not trying to help the unemployed.
CHRIS: He's talking about us. We're the unemployed.
VO: You told me you'd like to help the unemployed come to your show. Something about a dollar, a show.
RON: That falls back on our political stance. Well, not really a political stance.
TROY: That would muster all the misfits.
MIKE: There's only one problem with that. If we did that, everyone would come in and say I haven't got a job. Let me in free. It's just one more thing for them to take advantage of. Even when you try to be nice to people, they only take advantage of you sooner or later.
VO: Any closing statements?
MIKE: There is no escaping the truth. Everyone possesses some knowledge, but it's only a matter of facing the truth to make you a better person. Statement put ultimate truth in quotations.
CHRIS: I think things will never get any better, no matter how hard people try, because we're all working toward the same thing. Death.
MIKE: And it shoots down everyone's goals. It's so self-explanatory. It's so simple that if you don't understand what Chris just said, then you'll never understand anything. It's so clear cut, so clear cut.
CHRIS: Let's answer this question before it is asked, because I know what people are going to say. What are you living for? Why don't we just do away with ourselves? Right now? Go ahead. I posed the question. Answer that.
MIKE: It's human nature to try and survive. To try to live. People all have this same philosophy all over. They either hide behind religion or they hide behind making things better. And people equate making things better with making money.
CHRIS: So when people ask, what are we living for? We're living because no one can deal with the truth.
RON: At this point now I personally want revenge. I'm very vengeful at the moment, especially tonight.
Okay. I’m back. Whew. That was a shit-ton of work, so I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I’d ask you don’t judge 20 year-old Chris too harshly. And if you have any Nihilistics material–written, audio, video–you’d like to share, please email me at chris@thenihilistics.com or click the button below.