Led By Regret Interview

KEITH: We released our ultra slammin demo this time last year. At the time, I think we were aiming our sound along the lines of Sick of it All or CIV. Lately though, with our current line up, we aren’t trying to compromise what we do so much and are more willing to encorporate our own little fancies into the run of things, although we still fuck shit up.

LANCE: They have been together since Jan. ’98. I joined in Nov. ’98. The music has had a definite change since I came into the band. It’s become much more intricate and emotional.

MAC: We have been together as LBR for a little over a year now, I guess. Personally this band started out having little expectations musically, just something to rock out and have fun with on the side. We didn’t spend too much time writing songs, we just made sure there was a time to thrash and a time to mosh. Song writing now is a lot more involved, it can take months before were fully satisfied with a song and even then we’ll find ourselves making subtle changes to keep it interesting. I attribute that to the addition of Lance. He’s an amazing drummer and always throws himself full force into the song writing process. Plus he’s the only member of the band who’s allowed to take his shirt off.

TIM: I guess we’ve been around since late ‘97/early ’98. When we started out, we just wanted to write youth crew type songs with lots of moshy parts. Just have fun and give the kids something to fuck shit up in the pit too. We’ve come a long way since then. Looking back, it’s hard to see exactly how we came to sound the way we do now. I guess we just wrote the way we wanted and wrote what felt right. A lot of it was Lance too. He made a big difference and has really added to the songwriting.

Question:Your lyrics seem very emotional. Would you label yourself an emo band. Or if not emo what category do you place yourself under?

KEITH: Tim and Mac are the brains behind the lyrics, but I personally relate to them in a big way. Emotionally, those guys have been putting the lyrics in a much stronger personal perspective recently, but, for me anyway, they still retain the positive inspirational "edge." This band is certainly a positive musical project for me. When you think of emo, you usually think of crying, shame, and a general theme of loss and despair, some guy with no shoes on curled up like a baby on stage. It’s a shame that hardcore glamourizes anger so much over intensity. Love, is as equally intense an emotion as anger and it always rises above negativity as the driving force behind success in anything. Anger has only been a counter-productive force in my life. Any decisions I have made based on anger or hateful feelings have never gotten me ahead in life. I try to convey that as much as possible in my life and through the band. The name "Led by Regret" relates to that.

LANCE: I’d say that we’re emotional hardcore but the sound is still very progressive.

MAC: I’ve never understood that label. It would be fair to say that we’re influenced by bands that fit nicely in that category but we don’t really sound like those bands. Emo has become a blanket term in Halifax for any band that can’t pegged easily as hardcore or punkrock or whatever(and often any band that won’t just "shut up and play.") It’s like using the word fuck because your vocabulary isn’t big enough to convey what it is your really trying to say. Why is it so necessary for us to pigeonhole ourselves? We’re a hardcore band. We are four individuals trying to bring some meaning into our lives through music. Actually, I take it back we’re PROG-ROCK.

TIM: I guess I don’t really understand what emo is. I’ve always thought of it as more fashion than anything, just like most factions in the hardcore scene. Just file us under hardcore please.

Question:What do you think of the straight edge scene in Halifax and how has it progressed over the years?

KEITH: Straight edge has certainly matured in Halifax over the past six months or so. I think that most people have gotten over the giddy thrill of putting X’s on their hands and the whole "outrageousness" of it all. You know, t-shirts, and slogans and whatnot. I’m also finding that people who are sXe in Halifax are becoming a lot less willing to "apologize" for it. When it comes down to it, as long as punks or whatever continue to support their scene, it will continue to thrive. Diversity in the scene is a plus, which is why it is a shame that so many potentially good bands only play Punkfest and then seem to vanish for the rest of the year.

LANCE: The sXe scene here is progressing nicely here. All of the people that I now that are sXe are very nice. I like this quality a lot.

MAC: There is no straight edge "scene" in Halifax. In order for there to be a scene there has to be sXe bands, of which there are zero in Halifax (the one or two that hype themselves as such would prove to be false upon closer inspection.) The only difference between now and a few years ago is there’s more awareness of the term. There have always been kids who didn’t smoke or drink in the scene, now a few of them have started calling themselves sXe and X-ing up at shows or whatever. But again with the Halifax logic and paranoia it becomes a blanket term for any kid who doesn’t have a mohawk, hence the rumors of the sXe gangs going around beating up punks. That would have been fun but we just couldn’t get it together, ya know. People just have too much time on their hands. Maybe they should just start crocheting and give us a break.

TIM: Since I’ve been here I’ve seen the whole straightedge thing go full circle. It was really big and then it seemed like no one was. Personally, it doesn’t matter to me how many people are sXe or how many people "sell out". I’m straightedge for myself, not for anyone else and not so I can belong to a straightedge scene.

Question:Are you all straight edge? If so do you only listen to sXe or do your musical boundaries go to other forms of music?

KEITH: Whether or not each of us were sXe or not wasn’t a determining factor when we were forming this band That would be dumb. As for music, I tend to go for anything intense, inspiring, and/or atmospheric. There’s a lot of pop music I like as well; I just look for something with character. I must have listened to Aqua’s corny masterpiece "Aquarium" this year more than all my other albums combined…almost.

LANCE: I’m not sXe. I was for 2 years and have no regrets for leaving it. I totally respect all of my friends who are sXe, because they respect me. As for musical boundaries, I’ll listen to pretty much anything. Keith and I are techno kids.

MAC: I thought we were emo?

TIM: Lance isn’t sXe but it’s never mattered to us. We’re not planning a straightedge intervention or anything. The most important thing in this band has always been that we’re all friends, not something like whether we’re all sXe or not. As far as my musical tastes, I mostly listen to hardcore but I do bust out Iron Maiden, Stray Cats, and Neil Young sometimes.

Question:What do you think about that thing on America's Most Wanted about straight edge? Do you think that explained about what straight edge is or portrayed it as a bad thing?

KEITH: I have not seen that program yet, but I have heard about it. In a way, it’s interesting to see society’s roles changed a bit. You grow up with the picture that the typical tough guy is a bald headed, beer guzzlin cigarette smokin thug that hangs out in alleyways, so it’s weird to see them, in contrast, emerging as a bunch of drug free vegan kids. You know, it’s kind of outrageous, don’t you think? However, this was real life. I doubt that the convicted were thinking of the welfare of the animals when they planted that bomb in the restaurant. I say that if you are going to go around saying that vegetarianism is a compassionate revolution, then you should show it also. That means that you don’t go around calling your friends and family brutal savages for eating chicken nuggets and you certainly don’t blow up some poor dude’s business.

LANCE: Those hardliners are dumb and take things way to far.

MAC: I didn’t see the story on AMW but I’m assuming if it was on a show about criminals it probably wasn’t a good portrayal. Besides, anytime you have the mass media exploring(exploiting?) something that by nature belongs to the underground there usually ends up being little truth beyond the sensationalism that’s used to get people to watch or read. I read an article about the kids who bombed the McDonalds in Utah and basically it described sXe kids as skinheads. I’m sure straightedgers and skinheads alike would tend to agree that there is hardly any similarity between the two.

TIM: I didn’t see it. I’m sure that it was mostly wrong though. It’s pointless for the mainstream media to try and understand or explain straightedge. They always find the most extreme straightedgers to interview (usually members of Earth Crisis or other militant vegans) because they know that it will sell. Don’t look to the mainstream media for any sort of truth. Investigate things for yourself and make up your own mind. They can’t be trusted.

Question:What has been the best show for you this far?

KEITH: I usually rate how good a show was by the number of strings I break. Three being the best so far, I think when Straight-Faced played here. But lately, shows have been getting funner and funner to play. The Hotbox show ruled.

LANCE: I think that our most intense show was the March 6th show at the Pavilion. Our best show had to be the Hotbox show on Feb. 12th.

MAC: For me every show is better than the last.

TIM: Our next show will be our best. Make sure you’re there.

If Led By Regret was to break up and have one last show what three(3) bands would it be with?

KEITH: By any Means, Aqua, and AC/DC, but that won’t be for another 15 years or so.

LANCE: By any Means, Useless Solution, North of America.

MAC: Okay, here’s the line-up for our last show ever (and no I’m not kidding):