The Kill Van Kull
Cooper- guitar vocals
Ben- guitar vocals
Jim -drums
Bob - bass
-How Long has Kill Van Kull been around? When did the band start?
C: February 97 after the last Sweet Diesel tour.
B: Cooper joined Diesel for that tour and by the end of it we were breaking up. He had been playing with Jim, Bob and Janis in Moses with a girl singer. She quit and they decided to change the name to The Kill Van Kull and they cut the "Human Bomb" 12" for Jim's label Handi-Kraft. Then a few months later Janis quit to go to grad school in Indiana and they asked me to join up.
-Are you still on Eyeball Records? Are you happy with the LP you just released on Eyeball?
Cooper: Yeah, it's good as a compilation of different recordings though it doesn't have the feel of an album The first eight songs were done with Janis before he left and then we wanted to put something extra on the CD so we recorded three more with Ben.
Ben: I love the stuff they did before I joined though I think our new stuff that isn't recorded is the best shit we've done yet.
-How did you come up with the name The Kill Van Kull? What does it mean?
B: It's the waterway that separates Staten Island and New Jersey. It sounds cool and it's NYC referent which is cool.
C: Bob and Jim came up with it and it's appropriate since they both live in Jersey and we live in Brooklyn.
-What is the strongest symbol that has ever affected you, or still affects you now?
C: I can't think of anything.
B. The strongest symbol? I guess the church. It's hard to get that stuff out of your head. Christian symbolism is omnipresent in America.
-In your lyrics you don't really touch on politics, do you have any political views/opinions that you will express through KVK in the future?
B: Maybe. I never liked lyricists that beat you over the head with simplistic political slogans. I'd rather hear something more personal or musical. Most musicians are kinda dumb and don't make good social theoreticians.
C: There are some political messages in some of the songs. They're just buried in metaphor. I spent too much time listening to the Dead Kennedy's to be that literal. There might be a no housing no peace message song in the future.
-What band/person/enigma has effected the style of your band the most?
B: Any number of old punk or rock bands. Black Flag is always a good role Mod el for being anti-fashion, pro music, and all that. They weren't caught up in looking punk, they just wanted to create heavy, intelligent music.
C: The idea of just being free thinking and being about the music more than any type of style. We were all wearing coveralls when we played for awhile that's where that idea comes from, though there's also the DEVO influence, but it came from the idea of not distracting people away from the music. If we're all wearing the same thing it's not about what band T-shirt we're wearing or who's dressed the hippest.
-Do you feel underrated as a band with such a unique style as yours?
C: I would say yeah but we also feel that if we just stick with it people will understand more and more. Though I think we've had a good reception right out of the gate. I would say a lot of our fanbase is other musicians.
B: I'm always glad when people like us and I think we're great but if people don't dig I don't care. I also think it's kind of conceited to say "Yeah, we're underrated."
-Do people commonly mistake any of your band members for being x-members of Deadguy? Why do you think people make that mistake of assuming your x-Deadguy members?
Cooper: I guess it's from me being in Kiss It Goodbye with Keith and Tim from Deadguy. When I was in Die 116 with Andrew from Rorschach people would mistake me for being in Rorschach, which I never was.
Ben: I think when we toured with Unsane their booking agent thought one of us was in Deadguy and he told all the clubs that so we'd show up at shows and see flyers that said we were X-Deadguy. Whenever we get that we're always like "Sorry to disappoint you but none of us were in Deadguy." It's think it's pretty funny.
-What band would you say most closely parallels your musical style?
B: I like to think we're pretty unique. I don't know of any other bands doing exactly what we do. We can be heavy but also really melodic and dynamic. There's bands that we're all into that we draw on for inspiration like Black Flag or Black Sabbath and then there's bands who we play with and are friends with like Unsane and Today Is The Day that we feel a bond with but I don't think we sound like any of them.
C: I don't even hear it anymore but Drive Like Jehu is the band we most often get compared to.
-With the "scene" becoming more widespread and open to public viewing, do you think we're bringing unwanted attention to ourselves or spreading the message to invite new people into the scene?
C: I would say us personally would be inviting people in but there are other bands who are bringing unwanted attention especially bands that think they're going to make a million dollars playing hardcore and punk.
B: I don't really care about the scene anymore. The punk/hardcore/whatever scene is drastically different than from when I first started going to shows. It's way more mainstream these days. You used to really be setting yourself apart by getting involved in the punk scene. Now it's just another clique. Though it always had that cliquey element.
-Would you risk your life and run into a burning building to save a large booty stolen by pirates long ago C: Only if I could say "Argh."
B: Only if I was dressed like a pirate. Booty's a good word. I like booty.
-Your songs touch deeply on emotions that most HC bands are afraid to even talk about, were do you think most of the emo-phobia's, that people and bands alike have, come from?
C: I think a lot of emo bands write about personal things but they're afraid to go too deep into what they're talking about. Let's face it a lot of the emo stuff is rehashed hardcore songs about not having any friends.
B: You've got to mean what you're singing about in order to play it with any conviction. It has to be some shit that means something to me in order for me to scream my guts out. At the same time not every lyric has to be "serious." We can appreciate bands with a sense of humor like The Didjits.
-Do you ever get frustrated writing songs?
B: Only when it takes too long and in the end what you're written isn't that good.
-What's the most common mis-conception people have about you, besides the Deadguy thing?
C: Maybe when people assume that because we play with emo bands that we are one. We enjoy some of that stuff but we don't seem to go over well with that crowd and don't consider ourselves emo. We seem to go over better with death metal bands.
B: I wonder if anyone comes at us with any misconceptions at all. There's not a lot to misconstrue. It's just four mugs playing loud music. Sometimes we wear coveralls. Sometimes we don't.
-In the musical aspect, what direction do you think HC is moving towards?
C: Rap. Either backwards or towards bad rap metal.
B: I think it's time to stop worrying whether something is hardcore or not and just enjoy great music. I've gotten great things from my involvement with the hardcore scene but I all I care about know is whether it's good or bad music regardless of whether its hardcore.
-Have you ever done any overseas traveling? Any outstanding things ever happen while doing so?
B: I just got back from Ecuador. Obviously it's a lot different than here. A really amazingly beautiful country though it's the third world so there's a lot of poverty and pollution. Traveling's always great. That's probably the best thing about touring, is seeing the world, seeing how and where other people live.
-On the insert on the new CD, how did you come up with all those odd descriptions for everybody in the band?
Both: They're all true.
C: The idea behind it was about how much artificial parts and surgery do you have to have before you become a robot.
B: Cooper's really fixated on robots.
- What disgusts you most about the scene right now?
C: All the old hardcore bands getting back together to make a quick buck and not doing anything new. To me it seems more exciting to take that experience and move on to something new.
B: I think hardcore in general has a really bad imitation rate. Anytime a band comes along with a slightly new sound or message, 20 clone bands pop up over night. I've seen this happen over and over from the whole NYHC thing, through Born Against and Rorschach, Heroin, Fugazi, Nation Of Ulysees, Deadguy, through all the sort of emo pop bands. Be original. At least try.
-Would you rather read a real indie zine or a bigger more widespread version like the voice or something?, even though the voice isn't a zine, I'm still gonna ask this question.
C: An indie zine though I'll just stick with my subscription to Lyndon LaRouche's New Federalist.
B: I'd rather read the newspaper or a book. Something with a bit more weight.
-Any new releases coming up? Tours?
B: Hopefully we'll do a little tour in the spring. East Coast or something. We just recorded two songs for a single but know we might wait to do an album or a split single with someone. We got two songs on this comp with a bunch of other NYC bands like Chupa Cabre and Elvis 77 and we also recorded tracks for the Negative Approach and Naked Raygun tribute comps but I don't know if they'll ever come out.
-any last words?
C: Support new music. Don't get old.
B: Have an open mind and don't live your whole life inside the hardcore scene. There's much more to life.
Contact The Kill Van Kull at thekillvankull@hotmail.com or through Handi-Kraft Records c/o Reel Life Video 209 Bedford Ave./Brooklyn NY/11211
