I first interviewed Antisect back in 2012, shortly after they had reformed and started playing live again. I had always considered them to be one of the best bands to have emerged from the Anarcho-punk scene and their LP, ‘In Darkness, There Is No Choice’, still remains one of the most powerful and influential hardcore albums from that era, both in musical and lyrical terms. I was more than happy to finally get the chance to see the band live and the prospect of new material was just as exciting. However, just as much as their line-ups were pretty unstable during their original lifespan (1982-87) the newly-reformed band soon started to encounter a new set of problems. Firstly, founding member and vocalist Pete Boyce left the band under less than amicable circumstances. Tim Andrews took over full vocal duties but eventually had to leave the band after their first American tour, when he realised that he would be unable to commit as much time to the group as was needed. Similarly, bassist Laurence Windle eventually found problems in the balance between his home-life commitments and those of the band. He was replaced by another original member from the 80’s, John Bryson. A new vocalist, Chris Caps, performed with the band for a short-time, but since then they’ve returned to the three-piece format, with vocals now shared between original guitarist Pete Lyons, drummer Joe Burwood and the aforementioned John Bryson.
This line-up started working towards the much-anticipated new album, but again, problems and delays were waiting in the wings. Pete suffered a heart attack when the band were in Sweden to play at the Hygget Festival, and a long period of recovery and rehabilitation ensued. But by 2016, the band were performing live again, with the sets highlighting much of the material intended for the new LP. The first new track, ‘Black’, was made available online at the beginning of 2017 and the new record ‘The Rising Of The Lights’, was finally released later that year.
The album, as could probably be expected, received a mix-response. Many were disappointed that it wasn’t just a carbon copy of ‘In Darkness…’, while others complained that the production wasn’t ‘crusty’ enough. Others just didn’t like the record label (Lee Dorian’s ‘Rise Above’.) But anyone who listened with an open mind found an incredibly powerful album that expands on the ideas from its’ predecessor whilst embracing the possibilities that current studios can offer, without compromising their original sonic intent at all. It’s a bold yet natural step forward from their original records and, for me, certainly lived-up to expectations.
I really should have done this interview a lot sooner, but as usual, there were always delays in getting things set-up. Eventually, I met-up with Pete at the New Rose Studios in Camden...
This line-up started working towards the much-anticipated new album, but again, problems and delays were waiting in the wings. Pete suffered a heart attack when the band were in Sweden to play at the Hygget Festival, and a long period of recovery and rehabilitation ensued. But by 2016, the band were performing live again, with the sets highlighting much of the material intended for the new LP. The first new track, ‘Black’, was made available online at the beginning of 2017 and the new record ‘The Rising Of The Lights’, was finally released later that year.
The album, as could probably be expected, received a mix-response. Many were disappointed that it wasn’t just a carbon copy of ‘In Darkness…’, while others complained that the production wasn’t ‘crusty’ enough. Others just didn’t like the record label (Lee Dorian’s ‘Rise Above’.) But anyone who listened with an open mind found an incredibly powerful album that expands on the ideas from its’ predecessor whilst embracing the possibilities that current studios can offer, without compromising their original sonic intent at all. It’s a bold yet natural step forward from their original records and, for me, certainly lived-up to expectations.
I really should have done this interview a lot sooner, but as usual, there were always delays in getting things set-up. Eventually, I met-up with Pete at the New Rose Studios in Camden...
Since the last time we spoke, there have been quite a few changes to the line-up and the band is back to a three-piece once again…
‘Well, we never used to stick to one line-up for very long even back in the Eighties, but I think it’s probably different circumstances now and more to do with peoples’ other commitments. It really depends on how much time they can commit to the band. People want to do it, but after a while they realise that it involves so many different things and it can become a bit of a strain. I’m lucky because my job here kind of looks after itself and Joe is in a similar position. But for pretty-much everybody else that’s been involved, there’s always been either a work-thing or a family-thing that’s meant that it’s become a struggle for them to commit to the band as well. I mean, we don’t ask for silly-money when we play gigs and basically, as long as we don’t lose money, we’re cool with it. Some may work out a little better than others, but there’s not the kind of financial reward there that might compensate for having to take time away from work. So it’s really been a case of finding a balance and I think most people can do that for a while, but after that it can start to become problematic. It’s probably just an age and circumstances thing more than anything. That’s why Tim decided to give it up and also what brought about Laurence’s departure. I’d actually spoken to Laurence a lot about this before we even decided to do the band again and we both agreed that if we were going to do it, we should do it properly, to the best of our abilities. But after a time, it turned out that he couldn’t commit to it as much as he wanted to and that started causing a bit of a strain. We were trying to get-on with the album but it got to the point where something had to give. John stepped in, initially just for one gig which Laurence couldn’t play, but we noticed how much it changed the dynamics. It brought things to a head with Laurence and unfortunately, it was just one of those things that had to happen. I still feel a bit sad about it, because we’re really old friends and have been since we were kids. But if it hadn’t happened, I’m not sure if we would have even been able to scrape the new album together.’
‘Well, we never used to stick to one line-up for very long even back in the Eighties, but I think it’s probably different circumstances now and more to do with peoples’ other commitments. It really depends on how much time they can commit to the band. People want to do it, but after a while they realise that it involves so many different things and it can become a bit of a strain. I’m lucky because my job here kind of looks after itself and Joe is in a similar position. But for pretty-much everybody else that’s been involved, there’s always been either a work-thing or a family-thing that’s meant that it’s become a struggle for them to commit to the band as well. I mean, we don’t ask for silly-money when we play gigs and basically, as long as we don’t lose money, we’re cool with it. Some may work out a little better than others, but there’s not the kind of financial reward there that might compensate for having to take time away from work. So it’s really been a case of finding a balance and I think most people can do that for a while, but after that it can start to become problematic. It’s probably just an age and circumstances thing more than anything. That’s why Tim decided to give it up and also what brought about Laurence’s departure. I’d actually spoken to Laurence a lot about this before we even decided to do the band again and we both agreed that if we were going to do it, we should do it properly, to the best of our abilities. But after a time, it turned out that he couldn’t commit to it as much as he wanted to and that started causing a bit of a strain. We were trying to get-on with the album but it got to the point where something had to give. John stepped in, initially just for one gig which Laurence couldn’t play, but we noticed how much it changed the dynamics. It brought things to a head with Laurence and unfortunately, it was just one of those things that had to happen. I still feel a bit sad about it, because we’re really old friends and have been since we were kids. But if it hadn’t happened, I’m not sure if we would have even been able to scrape the new album together.’
You also tried-out with another singer for a while, after Tim left…
‘Yeah, Chris Caps, but he’s also a teacher and we encountered similar things with him. He’s a lovely bloke, but his time-management was absolutely crap ! I think it was a case that, with his job, it’s not just what you do in the classroom, it’s what you have to do afterwards… You have to take a lot of work home with you. We got along with him really well, but he was just never able to manage his time in a way that we needed so that we could get on with the stuff that we had to do in the band. It was doing his head-in and it was doing our heads-in until in the end, we realised that it wasn’t going to work, much that we wanted it to. He was a good guy and he fitted-in perfectly, but it was just a problem for him to get the time to do it.
So by the time that the album was recorded, you’d returned to another three-piece line-up…
‘Well, we ended up having to think, do we get another singer, or what else can we do ? We tried a couple of things out but they didn’t work so, in the end, we decided to see if we could do it between the three of us. At least this way we had less chance of any further disruption, but then I ended drawing the short-straw, really…’
When the band first reformed, you were just playing old material, even though a lot of it had never been released. At what point did you start to focus on putting new material together for this album ?
‘We’d been playing a mixture of stuff that had been previously released and stuff that had been written a while ago but never properly recorded. Plus there were a few odds and sods of new material that we started to throw-in, so I’m not sure I could really say when we started thinking about material for a new album… I guess we started to think about which songs from the old, unrecorded material would fit with where we were now, at first, but we actually started to write new stuff pretty early on as well… We even had new songs by the time we recorded the tracks for the 10” we released, but I think we decided that we didn’t want to come out with a load of new stuff straight away. We wanted to gradually feed it into the stuff that we were already playing… So I don’t think there was any particular point where we sat down and decided to start writing new material. We just ended up with an albums’ worth of stuff that had gradually come together. I think about a third of the tracks are older songs, some of which were re-worked a lot more than others… Whenever we rehearsed, we’d always go through our live set to make sure there were no problems with it, and then we’d use whatever time we had left to play around with new ideas and work stuff out. I’d also demo a few bits and pieces at home and then bring them in to see what the others thought.’
‘Yeah, Chris Caps, but he’s also a teacher and we encountered similar things with him. He’s a lovely bloke, but his time-management was absolutely crap ! I think it was a case that, with his job, it’s not just what you do in the classroom, it’s what you have to do afterwards… You have to take a lot of work home with you. We got along with him really well, but he was just never able to manage his time in a way that we needed so that we could get on with the stuff that we had to do in the band. It was doing his head-in and it was doing our heads-in until in the end, we realised that it wasn’t going to work, much that we wanted it to. He was a good guy and he fitted-in perfectly, but it was just a problem for him to get the time to do it.
So by the time that the album was recorded, you’d returned to another three-piece line-up…
‘Well, we ended up having to think, do we get another singer, or what else can we do ? We tried a couple of things out but they didn’t work so, in the end, we decided to see if we could do it between the three of us. At least this way we had less chance of any further disruption, but then I ended drawing the short-straw, really…’
When the band first reformed, you were just playing old material, even though a lot of it had never been released. At what point did you start to focus on putting new material together for this album ?
‘We’d been playing a mixture of stuff that had been previously released and stuff that had been written a while ago but never properly recorded. Plus there were a few odds and sods of new material that we started to throw-in, so I’m not sure I could really say when we started thinking about material for a new album… I guess we started to think about which songs from the old, unrecorded material would fit with where we were now, at first, but we actually started to write new stuff pretty early on as well… We even had new songs by the time we recorded the tracks for the 10” we released, but I think we decided that we didn’t want to come out with a load of new stuff straight away. We wanted to gradually feed it into the stuff that we were already playing… So I don’t think there was any particular point where we sat down and decided to start writing new material. We just ended up with an albums’ worth of stuff that had gradually come together. I think about a third of the tracks are older songs, some of which were re-worked a lot more than others… Whenever we rehearsed, we’d always go through our live set to make sure there were no problems with it, and then we’d use whatever time we had left to play around with new ideas and work stuff out. I’d also demo a few bits and pieces at home and then bring them in to see what the others thought.’
How long did it take before you were happy that you had enough material ready to start work on the new album ?
‘Ages ! Well, actually, the material came together pretty quickly, it was the execution of it that was the problem. As I was saying, we had people coming and going, we had a long break when I had a heart attack… It just seemed that every time we started to get some momentum going, something would come along and knock it on the head. It seemed that we’d get so far along but then something would happen so that we’d have to start over again. We actually had two recording sessions which we thought were going to get everything completed, but for one reason or another we ended-up scrapping them because they just didn’t feel right. So it came together over quite a long period, I suppose, although the actual writing of the songs didn’t take very long at all.’
I’d still say that, despite the delays, the finished album does sound very focused…
‘I think that by the time we recorded what became the album, we’d ended up with a shit-load of material and we had two choices… we could either release a double-album, which I thought would be too fucking wanky, or we could try to edit the material down, which just didn’t feel right. In the end, we decided to put something together that would sound like a coherent whole and leave the other stuff aside for the next thing we do. Once we chose the tracks, it was a case of how do we make them sit together and play as an album? It was that process that really led to the way it turned out…’
One of the things I like about this album is the way the tracks all play into each other rather than just having one song separate from the next. Apart from making the whole album sound more interesting, it also provides a nice sense of continuity from the first album…
‘Well, that was certainly one of the things that was in the back of my mind, trying to get that continuity even though the two albums might be over thirty years apart. But I also like stuff like that, I like the way you can build the momentum and create dynamics. I find it really strange when a band records an album and it will just be one raging track, followed by five seconds of silence and then another track.. I find it a bit weird that a band wouldn’t want to present they’re music in a more interesting way. With us, I think our musical influences are pretty broad. They always were, even back in the day, but a lot more so now. I mean, we’ve had another thirty years of listening to different stuff ! For us, it’s fun to create an album in this way… Start with one track and then think, what do we do to get from here to there ? It just makes it a lot more interesting.’
‘Ages ! Well, actually, the material came together pretty quickly, it was the execution of it that was the problem. As I was saying, we had people coming and going, we had a long break when I had a heart attack… It just seemed that every time we started to get some momentum going, something would come along and knock it on the head. It seemed that we’d get so far along but then something would happen so that we’d have to start over again. We actually had two recording sessions which we thought were going to get everything completed, but for one reason or another we ended-up scrapping them because they just didn’t feel right. So it came together over quite a long period, I suppose, although the actual writing of the songs didn’t take very long at all.’
I’d still say that, despite the delays, the finished album does sound very focused…
‘I think that by the time we recorded what became the album, we’d ended up with a shit-load of material and we had two choices… we could either release a double-album, which I thought would be too fucking wanky, or we could try to edit the material down, which just didn’t feel right. In the end, we decided to put something together that would sound like a coherent whole and leave the other stuff aside for the next thing we do. Once we chose the tracks, it was a case of how do we make them sit together and play as an album? It was that process that really led to the way it turned out…’
One of the things I like about this album is the way the tracks all play into each other rather than just having one song separate from the next. Apart from making the whole album sound more interesting, it also provides a nice sense of continuity from the first album…
‘Well, that was certainly one of the things that was in the back of my mind, trying to get that continuity even though the two albums might be over thirty years apart. But I also like stuff like that, I like the way you can build the momentum and create dynamics. I find it really strange when a band records an album and it will just be one raging track, followed by five seconds of silence and then another track.. I find it a bit weird that a band wouldn’t want to present they’re music in a more interesting way. With us, I think our musical influences are pretty broad. They always were, even back in the day, but a lot more so now. I mean, we’ve had another thirty years of listening to different stuff ! For us, it’s fun to create an album in this way… Start with one track and then think, what do we do to get from here to there ? It just makes it a lot more interesting.’
The songs on the new album are certainly not as fast as those from the first LP, but it seems that you’ve concentrated more on the power of the delivery rather than the pace of it…
‘I think it’s a mistake a lot of bands make, when they think that by playing everything faster it’ll sound more powerful. I don’t necessarily think that’s true. We did think about it when we realised that there wasn’t going to be any particularly fast tracks on the album, but at the end of the day we just had to go with what felt right. We also have that big, almost ambient track (‘Weapons of Mass Distraction’) quite early on the album and I think that threw a lot of people, but at the same time we had the instrumental (‘Midsummer Nights Dream’) on the first album… I think it’s a case that, if you just stick with one style throughout an album, it can quickly get rather predictable. I prefer to change things around to create the dynamics. I’ve always viewed albums as being like a little journey… I like to be taken along by them, taken somewhere I haven’t been before.’
Another thing I really like on the new album are the additional vocals by Jimi Lyons (your ‘brother’ ?)
‘Yeah, haha, I think that really works. It’s so funny, we have the same surname and we were even born in the same hospital ! I’ve known him for years and we’ve been on the same side of a few different musical projects, so I’ve always said that we should do something together. We just never got around to it until now. This wasn’t his usual sort of thing, even though he’s a great musician and a great guitarist, but when it came to this, I just decided was going to make sure I get him in to do it. I told him what kind of delivery we had in mind and the type of vibe for the song and he got it straight away. The only thing that’s slightly annoying about it is that we can’t really play live with him that much, because it’s only for one little chunk of the set so, apart from when we play in London, it doesn’t really make it viable for him to come out on tour with us. But I really like what he adds to the album, the whole facet that he brings to it.’
How did the album end up being released by Rise Above records ? Obviously, the label is run by Lee Dorian (Napalm Death, Cathedral etc.) Was he someone you already knew ?
‘No, I didn’t really know him until fairly recently. I think we did actually play with Napalm Death while he was still in them, sometime in the Eighties, but that was probably the only time our paths had crossed until I got to know him a lot more recently through mutual friends. We’d been thinking about how we should release the record and there were a few different possibilities, one of which would have been very DIY, but at the end of the day we realised that it would have been pretty restrictive and wouldn’t really get it out to any kind of wider audience. Then one day I was talking with Lee and I put it to him. He said that he thought he would be able to do a good job with it at his label, so that was basically how it came about. We both knew that we’d probably get a bit of shit from the anarcho-punk police for being on Rise Above, but it just seemed to make sense. I mean, people can complain that it’s not a supposed ‘punk’ label, but in all likelihood those folks don’t know Lee or his background, which has involved more activism than most, so I think it’s just being a bit narrow-minded.’
‘I think it’s a mistake a lot of bands make, when they think that by playing everything faster it’ll sound more powerful. I don’t necessarily think that’s true. We did think about it when we realised that there wasn’t going to be any particularly fast tracks on the album, but at the end of the day we just had to go with what felt right. We also have that big, almost ambient track (‘Weapons of Mass Distraction’) quite early on the album and I think that threw a lot of people, but at the same time we had the instrumental (‘Midsummer Nights Dream’) on the first album… I think it’s a case that, if you just stick with one style throughout an album, it can quickly get rather predictable. I prefer to change things around to create the dynamics. I’ve always viewed albums as being like a little journey… I like to be taken along by them, taken somewhere I haven’t been before.’
Another thing I really like on the new album are the additional vocals by Jimi Lyons (your ‘brother’ ?)
‘Yeah, haha, I think that really works. It’s so funny, we have the same surname and we were even born in the same hospital ! I’ve known him for years and we’ve been on the same side of a few different musical projects, so I’ve always said that we should do something together. We just never got around to it until now. This wasn’t his usual sort of thing, even though he’s a great musician and a great guitarist, but when it came to this, I just decided was going to make sure I get him in to do it. I told him what kind of delivery we had in mind and the type of vibe for the song and he got it straight away. The only thing that’s slightly annoying about it is that we can’t really play live with him that much, because it’s only for one little chunk of the set so, apart from when we play in London, it doesn’t really make it viable for him to come out on tour with us. But I really like what he adds to the album, the whole facet that he brings to it.’
How did the album end up being released by Rise Above records ? Obviously, the label is run by Lee Dorian (Napalm Death, Cathedral etc.) Was he someone you already knew ?
‘No, I didn’t really know him until fairly recently. I think we did actually play with Napalm Death while he was still in them, sometime in the Eighties, but that was probably the only time our paths had crossed until I got to know him a lot more recently through mutual friends. We’d been thinking about how we should release the record and there were a few different possibilities, one of which would have been very DIY, but at the end of the day we realised that it would have been pretty restrictive and wouldn’t really get it out to any kind of wider audience. Then one day I was talking with Lee and I put it to him. He said that he thought he would be able to do a good job with it at his label, so that was basically how it came about. We both knew that we’d probably get a bit of shit from the anarcho-punk police for being on Rise Above, but it just seemed to make sense. I mean, people can complain that it’s not a supposed ‘punk’ label, but in all likelihood those folks don’t know Lee or his background, which has involved more activism than most, so I think it’s just being a bit narrow-minded.’
Some have also complained that the vinyl LP is too elaborately packaged and too expensive, but they always seem to ignore that the CD is available at a regular price and the whole album is available to stream for free…
‘Exactly, the whole thing has been available to stream online for free from day one. We went through a few different ideas for it and we basically thought, we just want it to be heard. If it breaks even, that’s great, but really we just want it to be heard. The way that people deal with music now is completely different to the way we used to, so one of the most important things for us was to try and make sure that people could hear it. But obviously, when you sign to a label that could cause a conflict of interests in so far as, they need to make back the money they’ve invested in the manufacturing and distribution of the album and all the rest of it. But when I was first talking to Lee about Rise Above releasing the record, I told him that what we really wanted to do was to stream the whole thing for nothing so that if people just want to hear it they could do so without having to fork-out for it, he was open to it. I thought that was very cool as it would be a risk for him and his label and it would obviously dent the sales, no doubt about it. We also thought it might be a bit of an issue with the American distributor, but it turned out that the person dealing with it over there knew what the band was about from back in the day, so they were fine with it as well. If you wanted a physical copy, you could get the CD at a normal price, but with the vinyl, we wanted to make it a nice package. Nice, thick vinyl, nice artwork and an extensive booklet. It might be more expensive than some albums, but if you buy it you’re paying for something that costs more to produce and, if you don’t want to buy that, you still have other options. That was the issue for me. If you just want to hear it, you can do so and it won’t cost you anything, but if you want something that’s been produced in a certain way, then you have to pay for that process. It’s not rocket science, it’s just how it works.’
Are you happy with the way things went by making the album available to stream for free ?
.Definitely. I think there was always going to be a bunch of people who just wanted us to sound the same as we did in 1985. When those people heard the album online, there was probably a whole chunk of them who only listened to the first ten minutes and decided they weren’t interested because it wasn’t the same. In that case, it probably put them off, but we still thought it was important to put it online, especially as it wouldn’t cost us anything to do it. The downside is that there’s obviously going to be some trade-off in sales, but we were willing to go for it and Lee was happy for us to do it, so we went ahead with the idea.’
‘Exactly, the whole thing has been available to stream online for free from day one. We went through a few different ideas for it and we basically thought, we just want it to be heard. If it breaks even, that’s great, but really we just want it to be heard. The way that people deal with music now is completely different to the way we used to, so one of the most important things for us was to try and make sure that people could hear it. But obviously, when you sign to a label that could cause a conflict of interests in so far as, they need to make back the money they’ve invested in the manufacturing and distribution of the album and all the rest of it. But when I was first talking to Lee about Rise Above releasing the record, I told him that what we really wanted to do was to stream the whole thing for nothing so that if people just want to hear it they could do so without having to fork-out for it, he was open to it. I thought that was very cool as it would be a risk for him and his label and it would obviously dent the sales, no doubt about it. We also thought it might be a bit of an issue with the American distributor, but it turned out that the person dealing with it over there knew what the band was about from back in the day, so they were fine with it as well. If you wanted a physical copy, you could get the CD at a normal price, but with the vinyl, we wanted to make it a nice package. Nice, thick vinyl, nice artwork and an extensive booklet. It might be more expensive than some albums, but if you buy it you’re paying for something that costs more to produce and, if you don’t want to buy that, you still have other options. That was the issue for me. If you just want to hear it, you can do so and it won’t cost you anything, but if you want something that’s been produced in a certain way, then you have to pay for that process. It’s not rocket science, it’s just how it works.’
Are you happy with the way things went by making the album available to stream for free ?
.Definitely. I think there was always going to be a bunch of people who just wanted us to sound the same as we did in 1985. When those people heard the album online, there was probably a whole chunk of them who only listened to the first ten minutes and decided they weren’t interested because it wasn’t the same. In that case, it probably put them off, but we still thought it was important to put it online, especially as it wouldn’t cost us anything to do it. The downside is that there’s obviously going to be some trade-off in sales, but we were willing to go for it and Lee was happy for us to do it, so we went ahead with the idea.’
When Antisect first reformed, you got some flak just for doing so, but I get the impression that’s mostly been in the UK . What has the reception been like when you’ve played abroad ?
‘We’ve been able to play in countries where we’d never played before, so it’s mostly been this thing where we’ve been playing to people who had never had a chance to see the band. In those places, people just seem to be happy that they’re getting to see Antisect. The only place that we’ve really received any flak has been the UK , but the so-called underground scene in the UK seems to be quite stagnant, to me at least. I have to be careful about how I say this, because I obviously don’t mean this about everyone involved, but it does seem that a lot of people have become a little bit reductive. A community was formed over time, but in recent years it hasn’t really expanded. There are people who are a little more narrow-minded than they would like to admit and just won’t accept that things have changed and moved on in the last thirty years. I mean, we’ve had a lot of stick because the new record doesn’t sound like a crusty album… but if we had tried to do that, for a start it wouldn’t have been true to ourselves and secondly, we’d have found that a whole bunch of other people would have complained that we hadn’t progressed at all ! So at the end of the day, you just have to do what you feel is the right thing for you to do and hope that people will come along with it.’
Did the band get to play abroad much, back in the Eighties ?
‘Yeah, we did a few times…we played in Holland and played in Italy twice. We actually split-up in Holland , temporarily ! We did a bunch of gigs in Holland and had a few scheduled in Germany, but basically we got a bit too involved with things that were available in Amsterdam, if you know what I mean, and it all went tits-up in a pretty spectacular way… Playing abroad was also a lot more difficult to organise back then. There was a lot of running backwards and forwards to public call boxes, and of course there was no internet, which makes things so much easier now…’
You already mentioned the booklet that comes with the vinyl and CD versions of the album. You’ve written a lot of text to accompany the record, not necessarily about the album itself, but more about how you’ve arrived at this point…
‘Yeah, I wanted to put a bit of context into the album and explain to people who maybe weren’t familiar with us, where it came from and of that kind of thing. I’d started writing some stuff quite a while ago, but then when I had my “Swedish Incident”, I started writing something pretty different. Eventually I thought, perhaps I should try to join the two things together ? So I worked on that and started to think how it could become a part of the album. The idea was really just to try and put across the things that you can’t put across in lyrics, which can be restricted by things like the length of lines and the rhymes and all of that. I can’t really say everything that I want to express in lyrical form so I just decided to write it all down and I hope that it makes more sense this way. Apparently there’s been a comment or two that it’s a bit sweary, but, well, I can be, I guess !
‘We’ve been able to play in countries where we’d never played before, so it’s mostly been this thing where we’ve been playing to people who had never had a chance to see the band. In those places, people just seem to be happy that they’re getting to see Antisect. The only place that we’ve really received any flak has been the UK , but the so-called underground scene in the UK seems to be quite stagnant, to me at least. I have to be careful about how I say this, because I obviously don’t mean this about everyone involved, but it does seem that a lot of people have become a little bit reductive. A community was formed over time, but in recent years it hasn’t really expanded. There are people who are a little more narrow-minded than they would like to admit and just won’t accept that things have changed and moved on in the last thirty years. I mean, we’ve had a lot of stick because the new record doesn’t sound like a crusty album… but if we had tried to do that, for a start it wouldn’t have been true to ourselves and secondly, we’d have found that a whole bunch of other people would have complained that we hadn’t progressed at all ! So at the end of the day, you just have to do what you feel is the right thing for you to do and hope that people will come along with it.’
Did the band get to play abroad much, back in the Eighties ?
‘Yeah, we did a few times…we played in Holland and played in Italy twice. We actually split-up in Holland , temporarily ! We did a bunch of gigs in Holland and had a few scheduled in Germany, but basically we got a bit too involved with things that were available in Amsterdam, if you know what I mean, and it all went tits-up in a pretty spectacular way… Playing abroad was also a lot more difficult to organise back then. There was a lot of running backwards and forwards to public call boxes, and of course there was no internet, which makes things so much easier now…’
You already mentioned the booklet that comes with the vinyl and CD versions of the album. You’ve written a lot of text to accompany the record, not necessarily about the album itself, but more about how you’ve arrived at this point…
‘Yeah, I wanted to put a bit of context into the album and explain to people who maybe weren’t familiar with us, where it came from and of that kind of thing. I’d started writing some stuff quite a while ago, but then when I had my “Swedish Incident”, I started writing something pretty different. Eventually I thought, perhaps I should try to join the two things together ? So I worked on that and started to think how it could become a part of the album. The idea was really just to try and put across the things that you can’t put across in lyrics, which can be restricted by things like the length of lines and the rhymes and all of that. I can’t really say everything that I want to express in lyrical form so I just decided to write it all down and I hope that it makes more sense this way. Apparently there’s been a comment or two that it’s a bit sweary, but, well, I can be, I guess !
I think the booklet is takes a pretty positive approach, rather than just being critical of the obvious targets…
‘I think that’s the important thing. It’s really easy to just set-out to be critical and pick holes in things, pointing out the problems, but it’s not so easy to find ways to go forward and find little glimmers of light here and there. I think that the scene that we came out of is still around but seems to be very introverted and isn’t really looking towards the positives. If you’re just doing that, you haven’t got any hope, have you ? We have to have that little bit of hope to be able to keep moving forward and, to create that, you have to have some level of optimism, looking for the good in things rather than just looking for the bad. The bad stuff is always out there and it’s all too evident for people like us, but I think the important thing is always going to be trying to find ways of making things better. I don’t like dwelling on the negatives because it just seems counter-productive and it’s not something that inspires me. You can’t get too dogmatic about it all, which is how some of the Anarcho-scene went… That kind of politics tends to eat itself because it become too concerned with things along the lines of, ‘this isn’t good enough, you’re not doing enough, you’re not vegan enough…’ Whilst at the same time, the other side of politics doesn’t give a shit about any of those things because it doesn’t have a social conscience at all. It’s not concerned with the same kind of ethical arguments so it’s quite happy to eat the whole fucking world. So I think that sometimes, we seem to limit ourselves by the ways we relate to other people. ‘Oh yeah, you’re doing this, and that’s very good, but you could be doing this as well, so you’re shit !’ But surely, every little gesture in the right direction is a good thing ?’
Yeah, I’d agree with that. One of the things you wrote about was that, even thirty years ago, if you were a vegetarian people would look at you as some kind of weirdo, but now every supermarket will have a vegetarian and maybe even vegan section…
‘That’s right, you don’t just have to be a hipster in Dalston ! I suppose you could argue that, in the case of supermarkets, there’s a level of cynicism involved because, at the end of the day, they’re selling things to make a profit. But at the same time, the fact that these things are out-there now does give people an option. It’s like the whole hipster-vegan thing that’s been going on… As much as I can understand why a lot of people seem to resent it, because it has become a whole fashion-trend thing, there’s still going to be some people who are going to understand it and stick with it. How can that be a bad thing, trendy beard or not ? I think that anything that’s a step in the right direction, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to do something positive, so we shouldn’t be overly critical about it.’
Punk has always been obsessed with the idea of Anarchy, from the more serious approach of bands like Crass through the ‘let’s get drunk and fuck things up’ attitude of The Exploited. In your case, you seem to view it more as a philosophy than a political or anti-social statement…
‘Well, to look at it in any sort of realistic sense, I don’t think you can force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do, because people have to understand why they do things and it has to be right for them. It has to make sense for somebody to do something. That’s why I don’t think that any of the political systems that we’ve got around now will ever work. Purely on that level, you could make a law about something, but if people don’t understand why that law is there, then it’s just an abstract idea to them. That’s apart from the fact that most of the laws that are made aren’t made for the good of the majority anyway… But I genuinely think that people would want to look after themselves and others and they would make choices and decisions based on what is right for them as a whole. When circumstances dictate that behaving in a certain way is right for them, then they will behave in that way. I think that’s the way that I’m going with the anarchist-thing, because I find it hard to really look at it in any other way. You can’t think of it in terms of a revolution or over-throwing the government, because we all know that’s nonsense and it’s just not going to happen in this day and age. I hesitate to say that people need to be educated because that just sounds fucking pompous, but we do have to evolve as a society and as individuals so that we can understand certain things that we perhaps don’t want to understand right now. That’s what my take on anarchism would be.’
‘I think that’s the important thing. It’s really easy to just set-out to be critical and pick holes in things, pointing out the problems, but it’s not so easy to find ways to go forward and find little glimmers of light here and there. I think that the scene that we came out of is still around but seems to be very introverted and isn’t really looking towards the positives. If you’re just doing that, you haven’t got any hope, have you ? We have to have that little bit of hope to be able to keep moving forward and, to create that, you have to have some level of optimism, looking for the good in things rather than just looking for the bad. The bad stuff is always out there and it’s all too evident for people like us, but I think the important thing is always going to be trying to find ways of making things better. I don’t like dwelling on the negatives because it just seems counter-productive and it’s not something that inspires me. You can’t get too dogmatic about it all, which is how some of the Anarcho-scene went… That kind of politics tends to eat itself because it become too concerned with things along the lines of, ‘this isn’t good enough, you’re not doing enough, you’re not vegan enough…’ Whilst at the same time, the other side of politics doesn’t give a shit about any of those things because it doesn’t have a social conscience at all. It’s not concerned with the same kind of ethical arguments so it’s quite happy to eat the whole fucking world. So I think that sometimes, we seem to limit ourselves by the ways we relate to other people. ‘Oh yeah, you’re doing this, and that’s very good, but you could be doing this as well, so you’re shit !’ But surely, every little gesture in the right direction is a good thing ?’
Yeah, I’d agree with that. One of the things you wrote about was that, even thirty years ago, if you were a vegetarian people would look at you as some kind of weirdo, but now every supermarket will have a vegetarian and maybe even vegan section…
‘That’s right, you don’t just have to be a hipster in Dalston ! I suppose you could argue that, in the case of supermarkets, there’s a level of cynicism involved because, at the end of the day, they’re selling things to make a profit. But at the same time, the fact that these things are out-there now does give people an option. It’s like the whole hipster-vegan thing that’s been going on… As much as I can understand why a lot of people seem to resent it, because it has become a whole fashion-trend thing, there’s still going to be some people who are going to understand it and stick with it. How can that be a bad thing, trendy beard or not ? I think that anything that’s a step in the right direction, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to do something positive, so we shouldn’t be overly critical about it.’
Punk has always been obsessed with the idea of Anarchy, from the more serious approach of bands like Crass through the ‘let’s get drunk and fuck things up’ attitude of The Exploited. In your case, you seem to view it more as a philosophy than a political or anti-social statement…
‘Well, to look at it in any sort of realistic sense, I don’t think you can force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do, because people have to understand why they do things and it has to be right for them. It has to make sense for somebody to do something. That’s why I don’t think that any of the political systems that we’ve got around now will ever work. Purely on that level, you could make a law about something, but if people don’t understand why that law is there, then it’s just an abstract idea to them. That’s apart from the fact that most of the laws that are made aren’t made for the good of the majority anyway… But I genuinely think that people would want to look after themselves and others and they would make choices and decisions based on what is right for them as a whole. When circumstances dictate that behaving in a certain way is right for them, then they will behave in that way. I think that’s the way that I’m going with the anarchist-thing, because I find it hard to really look at it in any other way. You can’t think of it in terms of a revolution or over-throwing the government, because we all know that’s nonsense and it’s just not going to happen in this day and age. I hesitate to say that people need to be educated because that just sounds fucking pompous, but we do have to evolve as a society and as individuals so that we can understand certain things that we perhaps don’t want to understand right now. That’s what my take on anarchism would be.’
These things would have to be gradual rather than revolutionary, otherwise all that happens is that one system of control gets replaced by another…
‘Exactly, and that would just create another form of coercion. I guess the argument against thinking that way is that is that we haven’t got the time, but then, what is the alternative ? You could have a violent insurrection, but that wouldn’t improve things either. It seems to me that you have to be true to what you feel and think. Just consider all the countries that overthrew their oppressive government only to replace it with another totalitarian state… unfortunately, that’s the way those things seem to go.’
It is a utopian ideal, but surely it’s something that’s worth working towards rather than just accepting the current state of things. The irony is that people who say anarchism is unrealistic are often the same kind of people who have no problem believing that they’re going to go to heaven when they die…
‘But even if you do believe that, surely it shouldn’t prevent you from wanting to push this kind of ideology? I find it weird that people will think about things like this and say that it’s ridiculous… surely, it’s no less ridiculous than the way we behave now ? My whole argument is that the police and army are only there because people behave in certain ways. Perhaps if people genuinely treated each other in a better way, those things wouldn’t be necessary. The problem is that people have a tendency to only look at things in terms of their own lifespan… This also applies to governments, as they tend to set themselves up just for a four or five year period-of-office and don’t really consider more than that. People tend to look towards their own life-span, or only as far as their direct-family, so a long-term view is really quite rare. Most people can’t imagine any kind of vested interest beyond that, which is a shame. I can understand that, but is it really all that difficult to look beyond ? It won’t hurt you to try and look a bit further… But too many issues, like global warming or the exhaustion of natural resources, aren’t going to affect us within our lifetime, so governments aren’t willing to take any real responsibility for them now. That’s how it is with most politics… ‘I don’t care about it because it’s not going to affect me.’ It doesn’t surprise me at all, although recently it’s become really difficult thing to understand how overt it’s all become. There are things happening now that people just seem to accept, whereas even just ten years ago, they would have been totally unacceptable. It’s as if the dam’s burst and it’s difficult to see how it’s going to turn around. Particularly with what’s been happening in America and with the Brexit thing over here. It’s made me realise that there are a lot more people that think in that kind of way than I ever thought there were and it’s very disappointing. I think part of the problem is that there are so many soundbytes and conflicting information going around now, so people end up thinking that it’s all a load of bollocks and just don’t want to deal with it. And when it comes to election time or anything like that, it just boils down to who has the most money and can pay for their argument to be presented bigger and louder than anyone else. Consequently, people just tick that box... The whole idea of Democracy is right out of the window and it has been for years. It’s almost insulting that we’re still being sold that line…’
We seem to have reached a situation where you can’t even be sure if the people who get elected are even really in charge of the government, or whether there are other people behind the scenes who are paying to pull the strings and set their own agenda…
‘The thing now is that you don’t even have to be in politics to be in charge. You look at someone like Trump and you have to consider whether he’s just a loudmouth saying all this stuff to obfuscate the real issues while there’s all this stuff going on in the background that’s being controlled by CEO’s from various Corporations who in turn are probably being manipulated by all manner of shady fuckwits. Those kind of people don’t have any real interest in politics and answer to nobody, they just have a payroll that gives them the financial clout to make the difference. There have already been things that have come out about the Trump administration, various sneaky dealings and things like that, but it’ll always be two-steps removed from where people think the power is so it won’t really affect the ongoing situation. Trump is obviously not a very nice person, but he certainly isn’t the whole story.’
‘Exactly, and that would just create another form of coercion. I guess the argument against thinking that way is that is that we haven’t got the time, but then, what is the alternative ? You could have a violent insurrection, but that wouldn’t improve things either. It seems to me that you have to be true to what you feel and think. Just consider all the countries that overthrew their oppressive government only to replace it with another totalitarian state… unfortunately, that’s the way those things seem to go.’
It is a utopian ideal, but surely it’s something that’s worth working towards rather than just accepting the current state of things. The irony is that people who say anarchism is unrealistic are often the same kind of people who have no problem believing that they’re going to go to heaven when they die…
‘But even if you do believe that, surely it shouldn’t prevent you from wanting to push this kind of ideology? I find it weird that people will think about things like this and say that it’s ridiculous… surely, it’s no less ridiculous than the way we behave now ? My whole argument is that the police and army are only there because people behave in certain ways. Perhaps if people genuinely treated each other in a better way, those things wouldn’t be necessary. The problem is that people have a tendency to only look at things in terms of their own lifespan… This also applies to governments, as they tend to set themselves up just for a four or five year period-of-office and don’t really consider more than that. People tend to look towards their own life-span, or only as far as their direct-family, so a long-term view is really quite rare. Most people can’t imagine any kind of vested interest beyond that, which is a shame. I can understand that, but is it really all that difficult to look beyond ? It won’t hurt you to try and look a bit further… But too many issues, like global warming or the exhaustion of natural resources, aren’t going to affect us within our lifetime, so governments aren’t willing to take any real responsibility for them now. That’s how it is with most politics… ‘I don’t care about it because it’s not going to affect me.’ It doesn’t surprise me at all, although recently it’s become really difficult thing to understand how overt it’s all become. There are things happening now that people just seem to accept, whereas even just ten years ago, they would have been totally unacceptable. It’s as if the dam’s burst and it’s difficult to see how it’s going to turn around. Particularly with what’s been happening in America and with the Brexit thing over here. It’s made me realise that there are a lot more people that think in that kind of way than I ever thought there were and it’s very disappointing. I think part of the problem is that there are so many soundbytes and conflicting information going around now, so people end up thinking that it’s all a load of bollocks and just don’t want to deal with it. And when it comes to election time or anything like that, it just boils down to who has the most money and can pay for their argument to be presented bigger and louder than anyone else. Consequently, people just tick that box... The whole idea of Democracy is right out of the window and it has been for years. It’s almost insulting that we’re still being sold that line…’
We seem to have reached a situation where you can’t even be sure if the people who get elected are even really in charge of the government, or whether there are other people behind the scenes who are paying to pull the strings and set their own agenda…
‘The thing now is that you don’t even have to be in politics to be in charge. You look at someone like Trump and you have to consider whether he’s just a loudmouth saying all this stuff to obfuscate the real issues while there’s all this stuff going on in the background that’s being controlled by CEO’s from various Corporations who in turn are probably being manipulated by all manner of shady fuckwits. Those kind of people don’t have any real interest in politics and answer to nobody, they just have a payroll that gives them the financial clout to make the difference. There have already been things that have come out about the Trump administration, various sneaky dealings and things like that, but it’ll always be two-steps removed from where people think the power is so it won’t really affect the ongoing situation. Trump is obviously not a very nice person, but he certainly isn’t the whole story.’
You’ve recently been involved in an organization called the Punk Scholars Network. What is the idea behind that and how did you get involved with it ?
‘I got a call from a chap who I sort of knew from a long time ago. He’s now a university lecturer and he asked if I’d be interested in making a contribution to an event he was involved with. The PSN is a thing that’s been put together by a bunch of, shall-we-say, ‘ex-punks’, who are now involved in Universities and colleges. They set up events with various themes where people get together from around the world with the aim of sharing and expanding their ideas. They’ll have guest speakers and they’ll debate different aspects of the ideas that they put forward. I just liked the sound of it and it seemed like a really good thing. I have to admit I haven’t been in touch with them so much over the last year or so, just because I’ve been so busy, but it is something that I’d like to stay involved with. I found it really interesting because there were people from all around the world and it was really diverse. For me, it was so much more stimulating than just going to another gig and I think we need more things like that. I have been to a few political events in the past but they tend to be pretty dull, whereas this had a good balance of different topics and plenty of things that I could really relate to. I could see events like this really taking off in a much bigger way and I definitely intend to get involved with them again.’
One of the unfortunate things about Punk is that a lot of people don’t take it as an opportunity to educate themselves and learn from each other…
‘Yeah, exactly. It doesn’t have to be the lowest common denominator and that’s the thing that inspired me about the Punk Scholars Network. I’m not entirely sure that they’ve found a way to relate what they’re doing to a wider audience, but I still think it’s a really good vehicle. The value of having people with those sort of ideas within the education system is so fucking obvious, why wouldn’t you want to support it ? I think that, when you’re younger and you’re just interested in going to gigs and whatever, your level of influence is pretty small, especially outside of your particular scene. But you do find that as people get older, they’ll perhaps end up in positions where they can spread different ideas and maybe influence others in a more positive way.’
It also seems like a much more positive way to celebrate Punk’s legacy than a lot of the ‘40th Anniversary’ stuff that happened recently. Much that I think that Punk’s legacy should be recognised, it’s disappointing when it’s just gets reduced it to yet-another nostalgia trip…
‘Oddly enough, I actually got invited to a private-view event of an exhibition at the British Museum, last year. It was very surreal, full of suits… Not that I’ve got anything against suits, I quite like ‘em actually, but it was more of an indicator of the kind of people who were present. Glasses of prosecco were handed out on the way in… I was looking around at these people and really got the feeling that very few of them had any affinity with what ‘Punk’ was. And when I spoke to a few of them, I realised that I had been right. I was introduced to one bloke (an MP actually) and his opening words were, ‘I love Punk, I’m a big fan of Green Day !’ That was the kind of level they were operating on. I mean, it is kind of good that there are exhibitions like that, I guess, but it was just full of old memorabilia, gig posters and record sleeves… The problem is that when something becomes an historic artefact, the meaning of it seems to change. People at the exhibition were just looking at it as ‘Art’ instead of recognising it for the catalyst to a massive sea-change of things that went down. Society really struggled with it and tried to push underground but there was no mention of that side of things. At the time, that was really the important part of it for a lot of people and I think that’s been a big problem with most of Punk Anniversary stuff. They just want to focus on the early days and ignore how things developed over the following years. They certainly don’t mention of the Anarcho-side of things, which still represents quite a big chunk of how the whole thing evolved. I think there was a whole load of stuff which was deliberately missed out because it didn’t fit the agenda, which is a shame. I don’t really understand why that happened as I’m sure there must have been at least some people involved who were aware of those things and could’ve put them out there, but that’s certainly what happened. At the end of the day, I’m not against these things being celebrated, but I do think it was a missed opportunity to put things in a fuller and more meaningful perspective.’
‘I got a call from a chap who I sort of knew from a long time ago. He’s now a university lecturer and he asked if I’d be interested in making a contribution to an event he was involved with. The PSN is a thing that’s been put together by a bunch of, shall-we-say, ‘ex-punks’, who are now involved in Universities and colleges. They set up events with various themes where people get together from around the world with the aim of sharing and expanding their ideas. They’ll have guest speakers and they’ll debate different aspects of the ideas that they put forward. I just liked the sound of it and it seemed like a really good thing. I have to admit I haven’t been in touch with them so much over the last year or so, just because I’ve been so busy, but it is something that I’d like to stay involved with. I found it really interesting because there were people from all around the world and it was really diverse. For me, it was so much more stimulating than just going to another gig and I think we need more things like that. I have been to a few political events in the past but they tend to be pretty dull, whereas this had a good balance of different topics and plenty of things that I could really relate to. I could see events like this really taking off in a much bigger way and I definitely intend to get involved with them again.’
One of the unfortunate things about Punk is that a lot of people don’t take it as an opportunity to educate themselves and learn from each other…
‘Yeah, exactly. It doesn’t have to be the lowest common denominator and that’s the thing that inspired me about the Punk Scholars Network. I’m not entirely sure that they’ve found a way to relate what they’re doing to a wider audience, but I still think it’s a really good vehicle. The value of having people with those sort of ideas within the education system is so fucking obvious, why wouldn’t you want to support it ? I think that, when you’re younger and you’re just interested in going to gigs and whatever, your level of influence is pretty small, especially outside of your particular scene. But you do find that as people get older, they’ll perhaps end up in positions where they can spread different ideas and maybe influence others in a more positive way.’
It also seems like a much more positive way to celebrate Punk’s legacy than a lot of the ‘40th Anniversary’ stuff that happened recently. Much that I think that Punk’s legacy should be recognised, it’s disappointing when it’s just gets reduced it to yet-another nostalgia trip…
‘Oddly enough, I actually got invited to a private-view event of an exhibition at the British Museum, last year. It was very surreal, full of suits… Not that I’ve got anything against suits, I quite like ‘em actually, but it was more of an indicator of the kind of people who were present. Glasses of prosecco were handed out on the way in… I was looking around at these people and really got the feeling that very few of them had any affinity with what ‘Punk’ was. And when I spoke to a few of them, I realised that I had been right. I was introduced to one bloke (an MP actually) and his opening words were, ‘I love Punk, I’m a big fan of Green Day !’ That was the kind of level they were operating on. I mean, it is kind of good that there are exhibitions like that, I guess, but it was just full of old memorabilia, gig posters and record sleeves… The problem is that when something becomes an historic artefact, the meaning of it seems to change. People at the exhibition were just looking at it as ‘Art’ instead of recognising it for the catalyst to a massive sea-change of things that went down. Society really struggled with it and tried to push underground but there was no mention of that side of things. At the time, that was really the important part of it for a lot of people and I think that’s been a big problem with most of Punk Anniversary stuff. They just want to focus on the early days and ignore how things developed over the following years. They certainly don’t mention of the Anarcho-side of things, which still represents quite a big chunk of how the whole thing evolved. I think there was a whole load of stuff which was deliberately missed out because it didn’t fit the agenda, which is a shame. I don’t really understand why that happened as I’m sure there must have been at least some people involved who were aware of those things and could’ve put them out there, but that’s certainly what happened. At the end of the day, I’m not against these things being celebrated, but I do think it was a missed opportunity to put things in a fuller and more meaningful perspective.’
and if you wish to hear 'The Rising of The Lights'...
www.youtube.com/channel/UCFwpYZuxxiWx2ivAP6EWPvw
www.youtube.com/channel/UCFwpYZuxxiWx2ivAP6EWPvw
Many thanks to Ester Segarra for the use of her excellent photos.