INTERVIEWS
Question: Are Slapshot a Straight Edge Band? Mark McKay: Of the worst kind. Steve Risteen: That word is kind of twisted around these nowadays. Jack Kelly: I think that is why we all hesitated, because we have to think whether we consider ourselves Straight Edge by today's standards. Jamie Sciarappa: We don't smoke, drink, do drugs. Mark McKay: Not by today's standard with bullshit like vegetarianism and stuff like that. Jamie Sciarappa: In the purest sense of the word, with what it meant six years ago, yes we are Straight Edge. Mark McKay: And you can't rewrite the laws. Question: So you don't relate to a lot of what is now considered Straight Edge? Jack Kelly: Yeah, to a certain degree I guess. Mark McKay: I've separated myself from it, because it's like they've gone out and condemned us because we we're not vegetarians and because we're not positive towards the scene. Jack Kelly: If that's your definition of Straight Edge, then no, we're not Straight Edge. But by all definitions of what it's supposed to be, we're it. Question: Jamie, did you ever think you'd be in another Hardcore band since SSD broke up? Jamie Sciarappa: Probably not. When I got out of SSD I didn't really plan on getting back into a band. Then after about two years I started getting the bug again to get into a band... Steve Risteen: And realized what a loser and that's all he had in life. The only friends he had were Punk Rockers. [Laughter] Jamie Sciarappa: Jordan wanted to play guitar and they needed a bass player. They tried a couple of people and it didn't work, and they asked me and I said sure. Question: Why, at the time, did you figure you'd never be in another Hardcore band? Jamie Sciarappa: I was kind of sick of it. I'd been in SSD for four years and it had gotten a bit stale for me after a while. I just grew out of it I didn't care for the music for a while. Question: Is this much different than what you were doing before? Jamie Sciarappa: No, not really. The way I look at it is that these guys are all my friends and we just hang out together. Jack Kelly: I mean, I was just along for the ride and now... we're it. I think it's exactly the same. Jamie Sciarappa: Choke and I have been together since the beginning. We've been friends since 1981, when the whole thing started. Steve Risteen: Like all these other bands are out trying to say all these big things, but we're out having a good time. Jack Kelly: We do what we want. We don't care if we make friends, we're not out to kiss anyone's ass. Mark McKay: People are going to like us for what we are, and then we'll know that those people are our friends. Jamie Sciarappa: On this tour, it's great to play, but even if we didn't play we'd have a great time. Mark McKay: Probably a better time. [Laughter] Question: Has Jamie brought any particular element into the band? Mark McKay: Yeah, the long hair! [Everybody approves] Steve Risteen: Me, Mark and Jamie get together a bit more, so there's a bit different songs to the songs we're writing, but it's still Slapshot Mark McKay: Jamie's got a bit more of a rock background, so that might show. Jack Kelly: The first show we played with Jamie was a CBGB's, and I just remember being on stage and at one time looking around and there he was, standing on his toes and banging the bass. I was like "Yes, he's back! Alright!" All I remember was being on the floor and seeing that, not on the same stage with me. I always had a secret dream of them throwing Springa out and me singing for SS Decontrol. I was like "I've been around the whole time you've been together... Get rid of the little fuck and I'll sing". I think we had the same singing style, but I thought I was a lot better. It's just that we've been such friends from the beginning, and that there being on stage with him got me going a whole lot more. Also, I'm no longer the oldest guy in the band. Jamie Sciarappa: I'm the old grump in the band. Question: Can you foresee any musical direction you may be heading into? Steve Risteen: We're playing what we want now, and if Slapshot were to change... Jack Kelly: We've tried writing some sort of different material. If songs work, we immediately like them, if a song doesn't work, like a couple of songs I've written lately, it's immediate and you know. Question: Is it different now than when you started? Steve Risteen: Better sounding I think. I play guitar a little better than at the beginning. Mark McKay: Just a little. [Laughter] Steve Risteen: Naw c'mon, I play better now. Jamie Sciarappa: The sound is slightly more complicated. Question: What's the label situation like? I've heard you were messing with Hawker, and upset with Taang! Records. Steve Risteen: We're not upset with Taang! Records. We're just listening to people. Hawker called us, we didn't call them. Any record company that wants to call us can call us. We don't have an albums worth of material, so we're not worried about it. Jack Kelly: If we do get enough material, we'll start looking. Jordan Wood: We write songs in bunches. Jack Kelly: It seems my writing cycle is in the fall. This past fall I didn't write any Slapshot songs... I guess a couple of them they could have used, but I decided I'd write an Oi album. I wrote like nineteen songs in a one month period. All the while, I was trying to work on Slapshot songs, but we've got only three we're working on. Question: Explain the song "Same Mistake". Jack Kelly: I didn't write that one about anyone at all. Usually, I've got a song for somebody particular in mind, but with that one we just had the music and it worked. I had a guitar at practice, Mark started drumming that beat, and I started hitting some chords [mimicking the guitar sound] and I went, "Hey, that's pretty good!". After Jordan and Mark took over and started playing, I put the words in. It's not about anybody, it's the Slapshot desperation song. Jack Kelly: That's about a guy back in Boston who always would... I remember years and years ago, he was into the bald head or Skinhead type of deal. Then, when DYS got really popular and started going Metal, he became a DYS kind of Metal head kid. A few months later he got a girlfriend, and this girl was into the Cult and death rock, so he dyed his hair black and became a death rocker. Then he became a Punk Rocker with spiky hair and all that. Then he became a Skinhead again, and right now he's a Wrecking Crew guy. Jamie Sciarappa: It could just be about anyone, you know. Mark McKay: Yeah, like that guy Mikey. [And everybody knows who he is.] Question: "I've Had Enough"? Mark McKay: That one is self-explanatory. Jack Kelly: It's a universal song. It's not about any one person. Everybody has a gripe about something they've had enough of. Question: I mean more so about the particular things you mention in it, like "Purple hair and all the freaks I see...". Jack Kelly: I'm sick of freaks being in the scene. I've always had the idea that if Hardcore is going to be for everybody... Sometimes people who have no idea of what Punk Rock is all about ask me about the band and I tell them, "I guess it's Punk Rock Hardcore". Usually the first reaction is like "Oh man, all those weirdoes, man, I'd never go to a show like that", or "all those kids beating each other up and the weirdoes with the spiked hair, I wouldn't go to your show", or something like that. That's why I wrote that line. It would be great if I could go, "Hey man, want to see me sometime?" Instead of going, "Yuck!", some people would go, "Great, what you do is really good". The first impression they get is of the people they see. That's fine if that's what they want to do, I wish it could be otherwise where they could just be normal and go to shows. I guess if you're a kid and in high school, looking like that doesn't matter because you don't have to get a job. Question: What about "Strength thru Oi and the kids who follow that"...? Jack Kelly: My wife and I wrote the lyrics to that one while driving back from Boston. That line was written about why the pro-American Skinheads in this country are into English bands and English things. Everything they worship is English. Now actually, and since that song is about three years old, there is something happening in United States as far as Oi and all that particular sound goes. At the time there wasn't and all those kinds where into English things, and I thought "If they're so pro-American, why aren't they into American bands? Why don't they form their own?". Now there are, so I guess the song is old as far as that line goes. Question: New songs? Steve Risteen: 42. Jack Kelly: It's called "What's At Stake". The original title was 42 because it was the 42:nd song we wrote, but I don't think it was. That song is basically a Straight Edge song, not so much our Straight Edge song as much as being our anti-obsession, anti-drug song. There's also "Get Me Out". Lately, my song writing has been anti-positive youth. Jack Kelly: Well, it's me, Mark and Jordan. Mark and I have always been into Red Alert and we we're goofing at the time, and I suggested we write an Oi album. I usually write songs around a song title, that's how I usually write a song a and little comes first, so I did "Shaved For Battle", "Here's One For The Lads" and some of the most generic Oi possible like "Street Kids", "Gang Riot" and "Doc Marten Army". Those where the first four songs I thought of, and I immediately went out that night and wrote them for practice. About four moths had passed and I hadn't done anything, then in a night's frenzy, I wrote eight more songs, so then we had twelve. I kept writing more and more, and then I just went ahead and booked time to record it. We practiced once with the first four, then practiced a second time with another four, and then we were about to record. I wrote eight more for a total of nineteen, but we recorded only sixteen. Question: It seems pretty tongue-in-cheek, but with the name and all, is it serious? Jack Kelly: It started out real tongue-in-cheek, but I realized that a lot of the songs I had written were really good both musically and lyrically. Four or five are some of the best songs I'd written, so I became totally serious with it. Some of it can be taken tongue-in-cheek, but then I decided not to treat most of it that way, because the songs were good. Why treat good songs tongue-in-cheek? Question: On the serious side, what do you deal with? Jack Kelly: Basically a pro-American thing. Mark McKay: There are also other kinds of themes like the Vietnam war vets and how they got the raw deal and didn't get the same respect as the other veterans. Jack Kelly: "Nowhere" is a song about high school dropouts. The original reason for dropping out may have been, but it was not the right thing to do. There are other songs that are much less serious. Question: Jamie and Steve, I understand you're doing a project called The Dark Brother. Can you explain? Jamie Sciarappa: We've practiced a couple of times with that and we've written a couple of songs, but nothing has really happened yet. Steve Risteen: The Dark Brother have been me and Jamie and about twenty-five other people. Jamie Sciarappa: Someday we'd like to get it happening, but right now we just don't have the time. Question: Choke, how would you react when someone refers to you as a "big ass, highly bigoted white power idiot"? Jack Kelly: That's his opinion. He's obviously misinformed about a few things. He's a dork. What could you say? Question: Why is there so much tension between Slapshot and all of these posi-youth bands? Jack Kelly: They pissed us off, and we're not like them. They started the whole thing as far as the badmouthing goes. Mark McKay: Nobody knows that because that was a personal thing between us a Youth Of Today. They called us all kinds of shitty names and fucked us over, and then we went around saying those guys are dicks and then everything went down. Jack Kelly: Nobody knew why we were badmouthing them so badly, so they immediately went around saying, "Those guys are assholes...", and this and that. Mark McKay: And we're the bad guys. Jack Kelly: I think we're perfectly happy being the bad guys. We don't care about them; we don't really care about anybody's opinion. Question: What about the "It's OK To Eat Meat" and "Boston - Where The Men Are Men..." shirts. Did you have anything to do with them? Steve Risteen: Some kid from Boston came down with another band from Boston, not even with us, had a shirt that said that on there, and said Slapshot did this and did that. We didn't even do it. Jamie Sciarappa: But since we were accused of it, we might as well take credit and have fun with it. Steve Risteen: We want to do a positive meat thing, there's been this vegetarian thing everywhere now. Jack Kelly: Sure, it may not be healthy for you to eat lots of red meat, but I'm not stupid... I'm pretty health conscious, you know, I don't eat red meat every fucking day of my life. It's not like an obsession to me. These guys make vegetarianism such an obsession in their life, that they're so easily ticket off by someone going "Hamburger... Ha-ha!" They're like crying, "What! What are you doing that for?" It's too easy to pick on them. They're babies about it and it's fun. Just look at their reaction. Mark McKay: They're like little kids when you take their toys away and they stamp around. Question: What is there about this whole scene that bothers you? Jack Kelly: Maybe that there's not enough good bands out there. Question: Compared to the old days? Jack Kelly: Of course, there'll never be bands like that. At the time in 1982, every band in every city was better than any band out today. Even the worst bands, and I don't mean it to sound like this, but The FU's at the time were considered one of the lower or lesser popular bands in Boston, but now their albums are worth so much by these kids that are like "Wow! The FU's are the greatest band ever!" There's such crap out nowadays, and sure you can lump us into that too. I don't think we're near to the par of a lot of these bands as far as originality and any other category. When I write songs, I'll take the full blame for everything. I'm not saying anything different than any other band of the past ten years has been saying, but our approach is a bit different. I don't think there have been too many bands in the past that sound like us, but I don't think there are any bands nowadays that come close to being the quality of even the lesser bands, but that's because it was fresher back then and newer. Every band was new and groundbreaking that had their own style and way of doing things. Now it's kind of rehash and we're doing the best we can, and that's all we can do. Question: A lot of people from 1982 have moved on to other things, so why do you stick with Hardcore? Mark McKay: I like the music. Jack Kelly: I actually don't like Hardcore that much. It's not really the thing I listen to much. I still like Oi and I still like playing the music. I've always liked the sing-alongs style of Hardcore. Jack Kelly: We're past the stage where we're obsessed totally with the Hardcore thing. Steve Risteen: Hardcore is the greatest thing to play. What other music people has go out and just give it all and go for everything. I mean I'm not the tightest player in the world, but I just play and go crazy, and the audience goes crazy too. Jack Kelly: Hopefully they go crazy. If they don't then... Steve Risteen: I'd rather play Rock & Roll, but I don't know if I could stand there in front of a crowd and play while they just stand there. I'd probably hide behind my amp. Jack Kelly: Why should we put out our all if they're not going to? That's the way Hardcore is, it's a give-and-take. If they're giving it to us, we'll give it back to them. Hopefully, when we start the set, that's how it goes. When we come out, "Wham-o!", hopefully they do the same thing. If they don't, maybe by the third song they will. Steve Risteen: But if they don't, we take out the slow songs. Jack Kelly: And then I start getting pissed off. Jordan Wood: Then maybe we wouldn't do "Same Mistake". [Laughter] Question: Anything to add? Jack Kelly: No. Mark McKay: We're happy to be on tour. Steve Risteen: Our first official real tour. Question: Will you be playing with Stikky again? [Reference to Slapshot playing at Gilman St. last tour.] Jack Kelly: Hopefully not. Steve Risteen: I don't like those nerdcore bands. We're more against nerdcore than we are against positive youth. They're such goofballs. They pick up guitars and say, "Hey, let's play games on stage!" Mark McKay: One was pretty funny, "Pin The X On Ray Cappo's Hand". Jordan Wood: That was one of the highlights out of four bands. Steve Risteen: I thought it was kind of fun throwing basketballs at them. Mark McKay: C'mon guys, that's not very positive, okay? No really, it was great, but everybody had a good time except us. Were we wrong or what? Steve Risteen: And we really care. Jack Kelly: If the crowd sucks, I have a lousy time. If the crowd just stands there, then forget about it.
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