Shattered Realm - New Jersey Hardcore

Wir haben mit Joe None von der Hardcore Combo Shattered Realm gesprochen, der uns einen Einblick in die Entwicklung des neuen Albums bietet und mit uns etwas über die Szene im Allgemeinen gesprochen hat. Lest, was er zu sagen hatte.

Can you please introduce yourselves and tell us and our readers about your band history?

I’m Joe None, I play guitar. The band was started by a bunch of friends to do something in the NJ area, but we started getting well liked and asked to play in the surrounding areas, and before we knew it we were picked up by war machine to do an ep… and we just didn’t stop since then.

You released your new album. Are you satisfied with the final result?

Yea I like it a lot. We had so much fun writing this and so much fun recording. It was really laid back this time, and we did it at a friends studio so we really got a chance to listen to each day of recording to make sure we liked everything. We actually got to listen to it over and over again, piece by piece.

What is the intention of the very long title „From The Dead End Blocks Where Life Means Nothing“?

It’s just a way to let people know what we are about and where we come from. For us and a lot of our friends, if we didn’t start a band or go to hardcore we would be stuck on the blocks doing nothing. We are still from the dead end blocks… we stay home for a little and wind up doing the same thing. It’s like this hardcore is an escape. If we didn’t have such family and friends in it, and such positive expieriences… what would we be doing?????

How do you think has your music developed since „Broken Ties, Spoken Lies“? Did the line up changes help or delay the progress of your band?

Well in the end I think it came out better. I would have enjoyed to write more songs with Chris and Al. I mean we did write part of this record with those guys anyway. It just would have been cool to write more. In the end it delayed progress cuz we weren’t sure what we were going to do at first, and how to do it. But… once we got it figure out everything just flowed.

Your „new“ members are Joe Hardcore and Chris Rage. How did they get involved and what did they contribute to the band?

Well I’ve known both these dudes for 10 years plus and are my boys way before the band. Me and Chris see a lot of the same things musically, so with me writing most of the music on both records it was easy. Joe likes to just sit back and let the songs get written musically and he writes the lyrics afterwards.

„Joe Hardcore“ sounds like the „Joe Somebody“ of HXC. I guess it’s a pseudonym. Why did you choose a name that is like an oversized cliché? Is it the total identification with your music?

Actually that name has been Joes nickname since he was about 13 or 14 years old. Back in the 90’s Joe was a 14 year old kid who was the only person in the city of Philadelphia that was doing hardcore shows. This was way before the internet. He used to write bands letters and ask them to play shows. This is actually how I met Joe. He sent a letter to my house because he wanted Second To None (my old band) to play Philadelphia. In turn we used to pick him up at the train station and take him to some of his first trips out of the state to see other hc shows.

He used to do this with all the bands of the day, like 25 ta life, scarhead, all out war. So kids just started calling him Joe Hardcore. Or Joe HXC. It’s just stuck since then, so we didn’t choose it.

What do you think about the current hype about Hard- and MetalCore?

I think it’s good cuz the scene is getting bigger, but with getting bigger you are going to get a lot of fakes. And with this thing we call the internet, it’s allowing kids to be a part of the scene without actually going to a show and being part of a scene. Don’t get me wrong the internet has done a lot for hardcore. But I miss the time when kids had to go to a show to buy a CD at a distro instead of ordering it. Or now kids watch a webcast instead of going to a show. All this stuff has helped hardcore grow, but I think it’s killing the integrity.

How do you think about the development of the scene in common?

I think I pretty much answered that in the last question.

Which bands and acts influenced your music most?

I can’t really say. There’s a lot of bands that I love, and a lot of bands that influenced me growing up. But when we write we don’t really try to sound like anyone else, nor do we listed to stuff to get ideas. We just kinda sit around and write. Not to say that we are the first band to that writes music without influences, or that we are doing something original. We just write without putting influences first.

Are you planning to tour Germany in the near future?

Yup we will be there all throughout febuary with Knuckledust. Thanks to MAD. For dates check out www.alveranrecords.com or www.mad-tourbooking.de

When are we going to hear the next album?

Not sure yet, we are itching to write some new shit, but we also want to tour the world and try and get our stuff everywhere.

von Stephan Oberländer | 01.01.2006 | Kommentare (0) | Kommentar schreiben