Who's who in I stand alone? I know two of you played together in turtlehead, where did the other two come from?Iain - I Played in Intake with Rick through in Falkirk 4 years before ISA, Played in lots of strange punk and metal bands in Cumbernauld, not all of them good i might add......... Rich - Soap was in a *popular* beat combo who we wont mention ;)
Was there a conscious effort to form a straightedge band or was that just coincidence?
Rich - It just happened really but i'm glad it did
Iain - Purely a happy co incidence.......
Soap - from my point of view i think it was a happy accident that when I joined as the last man in so to speak i completed the whole edge line up but it didnt appear to be a factor in my choice for vocals and was never mentioned before hand.
When did you become edge and what made you take the decision?
Rich - 1/1/2000. There were a few things going in my life and sxe got me through them.
Iain - When i was 18, drinking didn't seem all that appealing, seeing all the young delinquents in Cumbernauld getting wasted helped me make my mind up.
Rab - 15/8/93, it just seemed right, no flash of light or crap like that, just a realisation that I wasn't doing myself any favours.
Soap - really from 16 but i guess you cant really be edge till youre 18 so then till now. i find myself at 31 now so thatll be 13 years down! it was prompted by personal experiences that were either results of me bieng fucked up and causing problems for myself and others or the revesr and my friends fuckin things up for me. its a personal thing that i think in the end boils down to respect.
You take a more melodic approach to hardcore do you think you could find yourself alienated by the hardcore kids for being too 'soft' yet the punk kids might steer clear cuz you're hardcore?
Rich - Both crowds take one look at me and go "metal boy" and leave hahaha
Iain - Hopefully they'll realise that we're not trying to alienate anyone, we just love punk and hardcore music, our music is just a combination of the two kinds of music we all agree on, no body should feel alienated come and have a good time......
Rab - The punk crowd seemed to have warmed to us more, i know a lot of punks who wouldn't normally listen to hardcore, say that they are into what we are doing, the newer generation of hardcore bods may take a while to win over, what with the current trend of hardcore being the screamy stuff, which we obviously don't do, but in general its all been positive.
Soap - i think sounding the way we do this is relevent to us. not many current bands at any level sound like us. and from my perspective if i was removed and they got a guy ( or girl) that screamed or shouted the hard core label would be definate. but as thats not what i do then people struggle a little. if you look at bands like 7 secs though were not a million miles away its just because they aren't current or hip.people tend to have short memories and so we cant be hardcore cos we dont scream.
How has the response been to the demo?
Rich - Pretty good so far. Not everyone is going to like you, so you take the good and the bad
Iain - we've sold a few copies so someone must like us apart from our families.
being of the older persuasion, do any of you have responsibilities that restrict band activity like kids and jobs?
Rich - Getting days off from work at certain times of the year can be difficult but that doesn't interfere that much.
Iain - Just the usual Money and getting the holidays from work worries.
Rab - None of us have kids, so that side of it doesn't come into it, our employers are all pretty cool, and we can get most of the time off we need,
Soap - i have my own business which is a tie but thankfully i work with some great guys who have the shop at heart. i love what i do and feel very lucky to be doing it so dont want to be away from it for that long,
What do you get up to outside the band and what did you want to be when you were a kid?
Rich - Not a lot to be honest, going to gigs and going out with my friends. I wanted to be an electrician like my dad but I was shite at it!!!
Iain - I like to mess about with computers, play music and listen to music. I don't really remember what i wanted to be when i was a kid. It was so long ago...................
Rab - Just the usual, going to other gigs, my outside band life is pretty much music orientated, as for what i wanted to be....not sure, i did do an apprenticeship as a joiner then jacked it all in as soon as I qualified...totally hated it by the time i had finished. Never did it since.
Soap - i run a small custom based tattoo studio in stirling, lab munki tattoo. this fills my time and i wouldnt have it any other way. it wasnt a childhood dream that i followed but rather one that developed through my involvement in skateboarding as a teen. now its my life.
How did you first get into punk and hardcore?
Rich - I have an a older sister so she got me into bands like The Cramps and The Dead Kennedys, then a guy she was going out with when I was about 16 was introduced me to loads of h/c and he was into his crust a lot as well. He took me to me see Agnostc Front on the One Voice tour in Edinburgh. To be honest I was shit scared most of the night. All goes down hill from there. I was still more of a metal kid tho.
Iain - I was a Metalhead, through and through, then i got "Damaged" by Black Flag and it kind of snowballed from there. Suicidal Tendencies were the band that made me think beyond metal and get into hardcore and skate punk.
Rab - I've the older sister route as well, she was going out with a guy way back when punk was out first time round, the summer explosion of 77, he was round the house a lot, i was still very young and age wise still in single figures, but he gave me his Pistols and Clash 7"s and that was me hooked, from there it went to the progreesion of punk in this country, Discharge, Conflict, Anti Nowhere League, UK Subs to the other side of the pond in about 82, 83 and i found The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and The Descendents, plus a whole heap of other bands, plus the first Suicidal album, that was awesome.
Soap - like ive mentioned before from the skate scene. i think you form a lot of your adult ideas and influences as a child. i can link all my passions back to skateboarding. i got into tattoos because guys i looked up to had them. so it followed that bands i heard on early skate vids influenced my musical tastes. bands like Black Flag, Gang Green Anthrax and the Misfits were all heavily involved with the skate scene one way or another.
Was there a defining record that made you want to be in a band and what three records do you wish you had written/played on?
Rich - It was actually the Metallica Cliff 'Em All video. I wanted to play bass like Cliff Burton and have been trying for 16 years with no success. 3 records - Black Sabbath - War Pigs, Metallica -Orion, Iron Maiden – The Trooper
Iain - It has to be "Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden. I just wanted to be Dave Murray. Three records ? : End of Silence by The Rollins Band, "Straight Outta Hardcore" by Good Clean Fun and "Gommorah's Season Ends" by Earth Crisis.
Rab - Never Mind the Bollocks heres The Sex Pistols, plus the video for God save the Queen, Paul Cook is just so cool 3 Albums, Never Mind The Bollocks - Sex Pistols, Face to Face -Face to Face, London Calling - The Clash
Are any of you record collectors? What are your thoughts on that side of hardcore? Any rare pressings in your possession? Any you want to get hold of?
Rich - If it's what your into go ahead. Im not on the ball enough to get pre-orders and limited pressings. I'll buy coloured 7"'s and stuff like that but I dont keep it in my shelf to look at it all gets played. Ive got a lot of old records, most of my Black Sabbath lps are originals in fact most of my record collection is the from the 70's hahahahaha
Iain - I buy CDS by the bucketload, no vinyl though.... sold that a long time ago. I think it's a good thing as it helps the bands to get their music heard and helps them to progress and tour because they've actually got money for their trouble not just some spotty kid downloading their whole album from the net for free....That pisses me off. I've got a signed "At the Gates" cd that i love to bits but alas no vinyl. If i could get a signed Isis CD or Sunn o))) CD then that wouls make my day.
Rab - Not a record collector, but i do like to have full back catalogs if I like the band...is that nerdy?? even got Combat Rock by the Clash and that’s just plain awful!! Not sure if i've got any rare stuff, never really looked it up, like Rich i've got a lot of older records, but i've never bothered to see if they are worth anything. There are loads of records that i wanted but when you're young and money is an issue, you can't have them, so now i just have to settle for cd reissues, which are ususally good value for money as you get 1 or 2 albums and bonus stuff on 1 cd, Captain Oi! are good for this, although i wouldn't mind the Pistols A+M records!!!
Any other obsessions in the band like comics or toys?
Rich - This is the Soap and Ian question :)
Soap - skateboards Star Wars and tattoo stuff, any thing to do with these.
Iain - STAR WARS, toys, comics to a degree mostly the Sandman series and Clerks/Mallrats comics (Kevin Smith rules) also the new Army of Darkness series is pretty funny.
Rab - I have got a load of Star wars stuff, which pride of place goes to my Boba Fett full size helmet,
Do you read a lot of zines? Any favourites?
Rich - Not as much as I should.
Iain - Used to, getting back to it now i'm at gigs more, Not got any favourites yet, i'm going to keep looking though.
Rab - I do read them when i see them, although that is less and less, apart from gigs its hard to pick them up, Tower records used to do loads, but sadly Tower in Glasgow is no more, MRR used to be a favourite and Punk Planet is a good read, also Heartattack, over here Fracture(RIP) was good and Suspect Device is always on the ball
Soap - back in the day i was heavily into zines my faves being max rnr and Suspect Device from over here and on the skate side you could never beat the skate muties that bear hackenbush used to put out which later became the equally awesome bugs and drugs. if they pop up on ebay look them up if you ever skated.
Do you think zines are less important to the scene with the rise of the internet?
Iain - Hell no, as long as people are willing to put in the hard work it takes to make these things work we should support them 100% everything works across all mediums.
Do you use the net more to promote the band than sending out demos to zines?
Rich - Both equally. We'll send demos anywhere
Iain - we'll send CDs to anyone that wants one. We're just happy people like our music
Rab - The net is a lot faster for getting feedback, advertising gigs etc, but zines have more longevity, so someone may pick up on the band 6 months after the item was posted on the net and come and check us out, purely because its written on paper, not everyone has access to the net on a daily basis as well.
Do you think the net is in some way responsible for the glut of fashioncore kids and general view of hardcore being just music by making everything so readily available so no time and effort needs to be invested to be "scene"?
Rich - I don't really understand what fashion core is?!?!? Although theres no danger of me fitting into a pair of girls jeans. I think its easier to look something up, go "thats what a hardcore show looks like" and then think you know it all as opposed to going to a show and finding out first hand. There will be kids who will be onto something else this time next year and ones who will stay. Sometimes its hard not be an old bastard giving it the old "it wasnt like this in my day"
Iain - Yes and No, yes because the net gives everyone a faceless forum to attack bands and mock them just because thay aren't playing a brand of hardcore that was popular in 1984..... what ever happened to progression? you can't mock a kid for liking say, Poison the Well because that kid might go out and find a record by Murphy's Law or Black Flag and then investigate where these bands come from and then from there surely a healthier scene starts to grow, i think some hardcore fans are very closed minded and don't look beyond their favourite bands which is a shame becuase there are some really talented young bands out there who won't get a chance because they don't fit in with this ideal "scene". No because these kids are a product of the music buisness and it's need to pollute our screens with crap like Good Charlotte and Blink 182, comedy punk acts with nothing to say. Again if a kid finds Black Flag through Green Day then great but it has spawned an unhealthy glut of bands who kind of mock everything that punk/hardcore stands for and turn it into a fashion free for all, i can't get behind that. Kids who come to be seen on the "scene" are killing the scene because it isn't about the music it's about what kind of trainers are cool and what kind of sweater you are wearing hopefully the music will grow on them and they'll learn it's about the unity and the message and supporting your local bands not rich american bands who don't remember where they come from. My point is that it dilutes the message behind the music and that is a bad thing.
Rab - The net has made it easier for a band to be 'in' one day and then out the next, there is so much crap with elitism in the 'scene' the "oh i liked them back in such and such when they played in someones garage" and "now that they play with a full PA they've sold out maaaaaan" There are those who will stay in it for life going to as many gigs as they can, buy 7"s cds etc, put on gigs and try and support the 'scene' which has gave them so much pleasure and a place to be accepted, the others as Rich said will move on to the next MTV, Kerrapp band of the day......Rich in Girls jeans though what a thought :-)
Who's the biggest metal junkie in the band? I'm presuming Rich?
Rich - Me and Ian are both big metal fans.I've just got more hair than he has.
Iain - You would be correct in that assumption. Soap and i are all about the Doom and Rab likes a melody....
Rab - Rich wins hands down for your love of classic 'metal'
When can we expect songs about denim and faux leather?
Iain - If Rick has his way they'll be here by Christmas, in fact that could be our Christmas single, "Deck the Halls with Denim and Patches"
You covered priest's breaking the law first time I saw you how about doing it again as breaking the edge?
Rich - We would have to change the lyrics in accordance with recent myspace revelations "There I was completely wasted on Baileys Irish Cream" :) and With a reference to Richard and Judy in there somewhere.
Iain - It has been rumoured, but it won't go down well in the pubs i don't think. Then we'd have to do a cover of "Banned from the Pubs".........
Soap – that’s not gonna happen.
What are your top 5 metal bands of all time?
Rich - Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Motorhead, AC/DC
Iain - Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Carcass, Black Sabbath, Cannibal Corpse
Rab - AC/DC and erm................if we go glam metal, then Hanoi Rocks, Faster Pussycat, and thats about as much metal as i have, i really am the odd 1 out when it comes to metal in this band!!
Soap - AC/DC, Metallica-Puppets come on!, Goatsnake, the Maiden, Rhapsody
Anything to add, future plans, releases?
Rich - We are hoping to record later this year and maybe put out a 7". Either that or we'll all go mad on tour and start smoking crack when we get back :)
Iain - Ask Rab...................Rick'll probably have joined "Conquest of Steel" by now anyway.
Rab - Record as Rich said, tour again, and then more of the same, hopefully with a few trips overseas.
Soap - thanks for people who come down to our and other little shows, as tall trees grow from little acorns you know. big ups to the Byrne and skater Ian, damn fella you rule!