More Punk Than You Zine:Hey Nick, how are you?

Nick:Hi Mircea, I’m doing good. We just had our album release party and it was a big success- lots of drinking, dancing, and stage invasions.

I know you are busy with launching your new album. Tell us a couple of things about it.

The new album is called „Hold Fast“, and it is released on Dirty Faces Records (www.dirtyfaces.de) in Germany and KOB Records (www.kobrecords.com) in Italy. You can get it on CD or vinyl. There are 13 punk-ska-rock’n’roll songs on it, ready for the summer! The lyrics deal with class struggle, the bullshit political situation in America, daily life on the streets, and of course a song or two about drinking.

Loaded line-up 2003

(C)get-loaded.org

Will it be different from the former one, "Fearless Street"?

I think it’s a better album. The songs are much better and we were able to take more time recording it. We mixed in other styles of music, like dub, „spaghetti western,“ and even a little psychobilly, but I think it’s still our unique streetpunk-ska sound. We also tried again to make it as live as possible in the studio.

You had concerts with bands such as Dropkick Murphys and Cock Sparrer and many more. For the new album do you intend a promotion tour ?

Yes, we will start on 27.April and play almost every weekend through June. It’s hard for us to do a regular tour and play every day because we all have to work to pay the rent. We are planning to go to Italy later this year and do some shows with Los Fastidios as well.

A personal question:When you wrote the song "Vivian Oblivion", did you have anyone specific in mine? (maybe a childhood love haha)

Well, I wasn’t in love with her, but the song was written about the first punk girl I ever saw, when I was about 15 years old. I come from a small town in California, and in my region there were really no punks or skins. One day my friends and I met some girls, and one of them had a mohawk and safety pins in her ears, and was kind of wild. I only saw her a few more times, but was always curious about what happened to her.

Tell me something please about bands that influenced Loaded.

The main influences are The Clash, Specials, Cocksparrer, Pogues, Johnny Cash, and some AC/DC, but there are really a million others such as The Jam, Madness, 4-Skins, Circle Jerks, Billy Bragg, etc. We also love all the old punk bands and lots of old reggae and country as well, and all these styles influence our sound in some way.

Loaded line-up 2007

(C)get-loaded.org

How do you see things evolving in the punk scene? I noticed lots of new so-called punk bands, who resume their work to appearing on MTV and other things like that.

I think the punk scene will probably start going underground again, as people will get tired of all the crap bands the major labels are trying to sell as punk. But who knows, with the internet, nothing is really underground anymore, so I think it will probably get worse before it gets better again.

I know that Germany has a very good punk scene (from the bands to the festivals), what do you think of the eastern Europe scene?(did you ever sing here?)

We’ve been in Poland and Czech before for shows, and they were all really fantastic experiences, but unfortunately we don’t hear too much about bands from the East. I know some bands from Prag like the Flaming Cocks, and I’ve seen Red Union a couple of times and the Derkov Bois, but other than that I’m sad to say I’m not so up-to-date on bands from your part of the world. Although, I must say that MySpace has been a good way of finding bands from all over the world.

What do you think of the saying "better off with a smaller record label but doing what we want than with a big label and compromising"? Is it good to make compromises as a band?

I think that’s the perfect way to say it. You should never compromise your music or your identity as a band just for the chance to be on a big label. People will always realize when you’re not true to your music, and then you’re fucked.

Do you know anything about Romania? Any bands or anything about us?

I know Romania is one of the oldest countries in the world. I know that Ceausescu was kicked out in 1989, and I think Basescu is the president now. Unfortunately, most Americans only know about Transylvania and all the Dracula stuff. I don’t know any bands from Romania, but I’ve been looking at the Punks In Romania MySpace page and of course your zine for some tips!

Thank you for the interview and good luck with the new album! Cheers!

Thank you for your questions and thanks for putting out a zine to help keep the punk scene alive around the world! Stay free!

web:www.get-loaded.org 

thanks to Nick and Loaded

Interview by:Mircea