Picture courtesy of http://www.returntothepit.com
I sat down with Kevin Baker of Boston’s long-heralded hardcore outfit The Hope Conspiracy last month before a show at the Knitting Factory. The Hope Con leader and I had a good, near-hour long convo about his band’s move from Equal Vision Records to Deathwish, their much-anticipated new full-length (due this fall), and his views on all the young (somewhat clueless)kiddies in the scene. It’s funny too because most of the things we talked about during the interview (essentially, how we hate meathead ape-like dudes causing trouble at shows) ended up happening that night. Well, we called it I guess. Here’s a little excerpt from the interview. Enjoy.
Being around the scene for awhile, does it bother you when you see kids who ignore or have a different understanding of what punk or hardcore means to you?
Everything is a cookie cutter, carbon copy, look, pose or embellishment of something that’s already been done. I can look at five bands right that are really popular right now and I can go. “Ok, they are copying this band. They are copying that band” but they are all doing it half-assed and it sucks. But they all have a video and they all have a ton of money put into them and they are all sound scanning ridiculous numbers. They are immediately on this fest, that fest or this fucking crazy tour, that crazy tour. The whole ethic of it, to me right now, is absolutely fucking destroyed. There are only a handful of bands out there, that I know of, and that I don’t know of that are flying under my radar that are still doing it for the right reasons. Those are only the types of bands I can give two shits about. I put on the radio, I don’t even listen to the radio really, but every now again I’ll put it on and it sounds mechanical and processed. It ain’t my thing. And I’m also, mind you, not a 15 year old girl or an 18 year old kid. It’s all a way to sell a shirt and sell a fucking CD and sell an image and ultimately sell a fucking ticket to a show. Which, I know is, what the music business is. But that’s not what punk is and that’s not what hardcore is. [Read more →]
Tags: Hope Conspiracy, Interview by Matthew
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