Hardcore in its purest form: Interview with Knuckledust

You guys started out in 1996, which means  you stand for sixteen years now strong and you are on your way to become the next Sick Of It All. There are so many bands that stop or replace members. What is the Knuckledust secret of sticking together?

Nicky: We kind of grew up together. We know each other from school, from when we were around eleven. We were friends before we started to play music. We grew up together, we got into music together. We did everything together. We have been a family ever since.

Ray: We were around the same age, into the same stuff. We just played hardcore music, that simple fact was our goal. We never tried to become big, get a label or do famous things. And that is what we still do, we just play music. A lot of band set goals for themselves, they want a major label and if it doesn't hapepen they break up, they reach too high.

Wema: When people that are not in a band look at people that are in band, they think everything is glamourous. But in fact it is a lot of hard work and bullshit you need to take care of. Without a stable base, the band simply falls apart. Forget about getting big. If you love it, do it.

Ray: we wanted to split up for seven or eight times now, we just never did it we really hate each other (laughs)

During all the years you have been involved in the hardcorecscene, have you noticed any evolution or do you have any idea in which direction it is heading right now?

Ray: Here, in this time and age hardcore is more important than ever before because it comes up with the problems that we are all having, it doesn't matter in what part of the world you in. Hardcore has always made a point of speaking about this, that it was hardcore is like in its roots. Over the last years lots of rich people have been involved, with business elements coming into the hardcore scene.
But for the kids that grew up suffering and struggeling of course the music will mean a lot more.
I think it's the best time for hardcore, for the hardcore that says something.

Wema: Unfortunately now the image has become more important than the music.

Ray: The problem in the UK is that the kids' idea of hardcore is not what my idea of hardcore is. If you are into hardcore and you know about hardcore, then it's up to us to educate and tell the kids what hardcore is about. If you watch Kerrang TV, the description of some videos says 'hardcore', but it's not. I'm not going to name bands, but it is simply not hardcore. The kids now say they go to hardcore shows, but they don't because the real hardcore shows remain empty.


The new album ‘Bluff Lies & Alibis’ sounds amazing. What do you think you did different from your previous albums?

Ray: About the last album we were a bit disappointed, because the songwriting and recording all happened very quick. There was just a lot of shouting in combination with a lot of music.
We can say 'Bluff, Lies & Alibis' is different:  We put a lot more hooks in like choruses and we demoted the songs. We wrote the lyrics down and took some parts out. We put more singalongs in the album and parts of the songs that are recognizable. We simply structured the songs in a better way this time.

Wema: We kind of got back to what goes into hardcore in the first place. Lots of bands play what other people like to hear, but 'Bluff, Lies & Alibis' is the outcome of what we wanted to hear.
Another thing that we wanted to come across with this album is that a bunch of people have labeled us as a gangsta tough guy band. If you read our lyrics you will see it has never been about beating someone up, or about how tough we are. It is simply about the shit you see every day.  Also, the lyrics are very honest. If you read the lyrics, you will get to know the person.

Nicky: We also worked with another producer and studio, namely Igor from Born From Pain. He did a really good job on this and this is the best album we ever made. It's a hard album.

Ray: We are a pussy band.

Everybody yells: Whooooooooo (laughing)

Wema:  No, look we are pussies, just in a hard way.


Can we expect Knuckledust brings us another visit this year to promote the album?

Yes, we are coming to Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Rumania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Turkey? You have fans over there?

Wema: We don't know, we've never been there. We'll know when we get there (laughs)
We also never knew we had so many fans in Belgium until we got here.

We really need to go on tour, because the band has been too quiet for the last two years. Some of us had babies and got married. Now that we fixed things at home, we are going on the road again. That is the plan.



‘Bluff, Lies & Alibis’ is your first music video. Did you have fun recording it?

All together: Yeaaaah.

Ray:  It was our first time doing it so we didn't really know what to expect, but I enjoyed it. The thing is that everybody in the clip is singing and shouting, but nobody heard the song. Those people did really well with the recordings.
We also have some serious parts in the video with an actress called Maya Thomas. She helped us out by acting in the video for free. She punched in the wall, cried, threw paper around. We spent a day shooting those things. She is awesome, man! If anybody needs a real good actress, book her!
The first time we played this song live was at Ieperfest actually. What we had to practise is how to sing, what we did last week. With this 'we've all had enough' part in the song 'Bluff, Lies & Alibis'.

Pierre: We respect everybody that joined us with the recordings, the crowd really worked hard for us. A lot of my friends were there, completely acting crazy. Everybody was acting stupid, like little children. Everybody was laughing, we had a real good time.



 Where was the video recorded?
In the twelve bar, a small bar in London. For those who are interested: Every first weekend of the month they have a hardcore gig going on. The one day a London bands plays, the other day it can be a New York band.



What do you think of Ieperfest? Since you are already familiar with the festival let's say it like this: How does it feel to have been invited to Ieperfest again?

Wema: One word, amazing. In London, to organize something like this for hardcore, that would not happen. And certainly not on this scale. Not even in entire England. A lot of festivals have sponsorships and it all becomes business; they just don't have the true spirit anymore. Ieperfest is coming to a festival and you still have the feeling it's a hardcore show. And it's not only about music: the readings and literature are also amazing. I don't think there is a festival like this anywhere in the world.

Pierre: We have been coming to Belgium before Knuckledust even existed to see festivals and Vort’n Vis shows and bands like Stand Your Ground.
bands play like Rise And Fall.

Ray: The whole Belgium scene has had a lot of influence on the England scene. Congress, Liar and Blackbox did not come to the UK, so we took the ferry and came to see them play here. I remember running in circlepits during Liar when I was a kid.

Wema: when we came back from those shows we were still talking about them after a week. We used to copy the band we saw here as well.

Facts:
- The band got sick of the drum part you can hear at the very beginning of the song 'Bluff, Lies & Alibis' because the band had to face it 125669889 times during the recordings of the video.
- Knuckledust will play a lot more new songs with the tour they are starting.
- The intro of ‘Bluff, Lies & Alibis’ was made by Wema. If you listen carefully, you can hear his baby daughter crying in the background and someone whispering ‘bluff, lies and alibis’.

Knuckledust: http://www.facebook.com/knuckledustofficial
Maya Thomas: www.mayathomas.webs.com
Twelve Bar: www.twelvebarclub.com
GSR: http://www.gsrmusic.com

Interview by
Glenn Heyse
Els Van Campenhout

Review Knuckledust 'Bluff, Lies & Alibis'

”Too punk for hardcore and too hardcore for punk.” That is what the description says when you visit Knuckledust's Facebook page.
The nice thing about Knuckledust is that the same four people who started the band, still are part of the band. 

This London band started in 1996 and just released their fifth full-length record 'Bluff, Lies & Alibis' (Produced and recorded by Igor Wouters, Born From Pain). 

We waited five long years for another Knuckledust record and finally here it is: Bluffs, Lies & Alibis.

An album worth waiting for, since this is definitely their strongest album until now. 

 Bluff, Lies & Alibis

The intro is intrigating, as you need to hear it several times to know what is going on there.

It might pull you intro a surreal world of echoing, whispering voices saying clearly 'bluff, lies and alibis'

combined with sirenes and some other noises that are hard to call by name.

One of the highlights on the album is 'Facecrook' where posers get burned down without any compassion. 
Then there are some unbeatable rhyming parts in 'Spill The Hate'. 
The strongest song of all is of course 'Bluff, Lies & Alibis' with just that little more melodic touch and nice singalongs.

Since the very beginning of their existence the band promotes simplicity all the way, which is also promoted in the lyrics AND

as they themself always say "Pick up a piece of wood with strings and start making music!"

This London band has given us what we always expected them to bring.

A pure-no-bullshit-&-straight-to-the-point record by a truehearted hardcore band. Knuckledust does the trick with breakdowns, singalongs combined with simplicity which makes the album nice tuned the hardcore way.

From what the new record sounds like you can tell that lots of time and effort are put in to this

and every song has been perfected. Standing 15 years strong, it feels like this band is just being reborn.

A must have for every hardcore fan!


Written by Glenn Heyse

Ieper Hardcore Festival 2012 - the brutal review

Ieper Hardcore Fest, an underground festival that grew out to be one of the biggest festivals in the scene and could even be called the Mecca where every self-respecting hardcorefan should have stagedived at least one time in his or her life.
Ladies and gentleman, kids and pets, welcome to utopia.
Main course: Hardcore. Real hardcore. 

The music and the message

The message: More Than Music (MTM)Ieperfest is unique, because of the cliché sounding fact that it is about much more than just music. All food is vegan, bands and fans stand right next to each other while watching the shows, there is a zine library (Brutality's first zine with some highlight articles is in there too!), you can discuss social matters with your favourite band, watch live interviews and throw your own question in. It is education, self-development, celebrating freedom of speech and partying from eleven in the morning until the sun comes up. 



The first Brutality DIY zine chillin' in the DIY library.


The More Than Music tent was fully scheduled with live interviews such as with bassplayer Craig from Sick Of It All. Craig talked about pre-internet activitities going on to keep the scene alive during his young years. Bands used to trade tapes by post to expand their sound and get to know other bands. To give you an example: One of those tapes Craig received had been on the road for weeks after somebody from the Filippines had sent a demo from his band. Those packages always contained a letter introducing themselves and asking for a tape to be sent back. As Craig told his story, all we could do was gaze because none of us sitting there had ever imagined what it was like in those days to promote your band without internet. 
The Hardcore Help Foundation (HHF) is an unique organisation that collects money for people that are in need. How do they do this? The presentation they set up at Ieperfest gave all answers to your questions.
The HHF collects donated (most of the time second hand) band merch and the person who buys anything decides what the price will be. This way the organisation has collected a bunch of money in very little time. The German saviors were able to set up projects in Japan where they rebuilded a school after the earthquake, set up several medical camps in Kenya and helped out American people without health insurance. Those people really save lifes!
 HHF on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheHHF 

If you think that Ieperfest is just another festival, think again. It is educational, makes you think about society and about yourself. And it is one big party. This tent is important, because the name itself says where the entire scene stands for. More than just music. 



On the menu: The music

The festival starts off with fresh fruits, croissants and cold beer. Later on falafel and stew are served, both with salad. What else you could get? Let’s start off with some starters.

Starters (read: Friday):
Death By Stereo, Kylesia, Skarhead, Aborted, Congress, Mucky Pup,

Kylesa brings music which might remain you of Mastodon and Baroness and actually seems nothing special at first sight. However, if you take a closer look at the band it becomes more interesting from the moment you notice a second drummer bringing adding some extra fire to the songs. 
When Skarhead enters the stage, they are welcomed by an enthusiast crowd. At least as long as the band does what they are expected to do, which is making music. Compared to other bands, the frontman does not speak of wisdom in between songs. He does an attempt to make jokes, but that does not mean the crowd thinks it is funny. However, songs like United Forces were able to pull the atmosphere in the right direction again.

Knuckledust promotes simplicity all the way and no show of them passes by without them supporting you to pick up a piece of wood containing strings and start to play music yourself. 'It's easy, learn three chords on guitar and make your own songs'. Beside promoting simplicity, vocalist Pierre dedicated his love for the Belgian trappist beers.
Knuckledust's new album 'Lies, Bluff, Alibis' was not officially released yet, but for Ieperfest an exception was made and the first albums were sold and also the set they played contained a whole bunch of new material. The new songs do sound different and that is something the crowd noticed, as many people were already familiar with the new single that was played.

On Friday, one of the most creative sets is brought by Mucky Pup. From covering ACDC's Hell's Bells to vocalist Chris suddenly dissapearing to change his white HHF shirt for a black tank top and gloves. As you can suspect, the shirt did not live a long life, as the vocalist tears the top apart with great effort. More creativity is spot in the show itself. An audio fragment where you could hear Chris' inner voice speaking in combination with his acting skills surprised the entire marquee. Suddenly the set changed into theatre.
This band is more punk oriented and makes a party of their time on stage.
Nice fact: A blow up orca doll died of eargasmic pleasure during Mucky Pup's show. I still feel sorry for him.

Up next in the marquee is local legend Congress. While Funeral For A Friend is not even finishing their set on the main stage, the marquee is getting full. This is Congress' first show in six years time. The fans get to hear what they came for. A show full of energy, good atmosphere and last but not least: The vocalist performed some fire breathing!

Friday's headliner? Agnostic Front. These grandfathers try to raise the festival to an even higher level. When it comes to the atmosphere, they succeed in what they do. The stage was overfilled with photographers and admirers. The crowd was amused as they were stagediving today like there had not been stagedived before on Friday. Finally the REAL party started. The only sad thing is that Roger Miret's voice does not seem to be as strong as it used to be.  The impression that came to me was that the vocalist must have been ill. However, there were so many people singing along with songs such as 'From The East Coast To The West Coast' and 'Friend Or Foe' that the atmosphere became more important than the sound of the vocals itself. Death By Stereo and Skarhead's vocalists were invited to sing a few songs together with Roger.

Main course (read: Saturday)

It is still early when the guys from Cornered set foot on stage. The Dutch guys spoil their energy all over the marquee and tell everyone to support the HHF.

In the early afternoon the bigmouthed cocky guys from London who call themselves TRC take over the mic at the main stage. Songs like 'Go Hard Or Go Home', 'Define Cocky' and 'London's Greatest Love Story'  do the trick. During the set, singer Anthony had a bunch of singalong people in front of him who could simply not get enough of it. Second vocalist Chris made fun of the fact that all the lyrics sort of mutated since most parts were sung wrong by the crowd. BUSTEEEEED! But come on, don't we all sometimes just yell and scream some syllables into that microphone because actually you don't really know what the lyrics are? Of course we do. Even you do. And admit it, it is funny as well.
Nice fact: The very first show TRC played outside the UK was in Belgium.

Reign Supreme seems to have a very very very angry vocalist, who had a special vision on life. The philosopher spread his ideas not only with the lyrics, but did spend a good amount of time on talking during the set. After the last song  'Persevere And Overcome' was played, the last message was given before the band went off stage: 'Take this energy and use it to change the world, losers'. No hard feelings though.

Compared to Reign Supreme, Your Demise brings a calm set. The atmosphere is more like take it easy and just party with some sonic boom here and there. The show came to an end with the bassplayer crowdsurfing on the stage, yes everyone could join, since everyone again was invited on stage with 'The Kids We Used To Be'.

Lots of people gathered in the marquee for Grand Magus. Most people seem to be here in an attempt to get away from the heat in the first place. However a band like Grand Magus would attract more fans at a metalfestival, the hardcorefans did not let the band down, they got a well deserved applause after playing.

Trapped Under Ice was the first band of the day where so many people showed an interest for. Today is the last day of tour and their first time at the Ieperfest summer edition. Dust filled the air as movements in the pit took place  and the band focussed more on the new songs.
Nice fact: one girl got spanked by the no-shirt-sixpack-but-still-wearing-cap-in-this-heat vocalist before she stagedived.
The Black Dahlia Murder breaks a funnyness record by dedicating songs to 'This guy's beard' while pointing at some random guy standing in the first row. A fan dressed up like a Geisha got the task to lead the circlepit. Two years ago, the band was headliner at the main stage, but this year Ignite and Sick Of It All have pushed the band down in the line-up.

Due to illness, Ignite had to look for a back-up vocalist. Consequence: The vocals sound rather weak, the power was simply missing and made the set unfortunately rather dissapointing. The crowd in general did not care all too much about it, because they had more fun singing along then listening to the back-up vocals.

Saturday's headliner is Sick Of It All. The Newyorkers play Ieperfest for the very first time in their life. Before the first note was played 0,1% of the people started to stagedive and after the first two songs photographers forget why they are dragging the camera with them. 'So, this is Ieperfest' said frontman Koller admiring. 'Let's Take The Night Off', 'Us Vs. Them', 'Scratch The Surface'  and every song was sung word by word by thousands of people at a time.Dessert (read: Sunday)
Belgian band Nemea opens the festival on Sunday morning. It  is clear that most people are still chilling at the camping or simply have not arrived yet, since the marquee is only half as full as it should be.

After Nemea it is A Strength Within's turn to warm up the crowd for Ieperfest's last day. A higher level of enthusiasm is seen among the people that came to see the Belgian band.

More Belgian music at Ieperfest with Deformity. Never heard of this band before? Deformity was formed by ex-members of Congress and contains death metal influences.

Due to problems with the tourbus, Naysayer and Brutality Will Prevail are late and the main stage remains empty. But not for long, as the organisation decided to bring the presentations that normally take place in the MTM tent were moved to the main stage.

After a few hours the first act on the main stage is Deez Nuts. After a few song were played the crowd remained rather calm. At this point it became clear that most people just wanted to see Deez Nuts live, nothing more, nothing less. Sad thing is that you could barely hear the vocals if you were at the front rows. Nevertheless, during the second part of the set, people are more into moving around.
Cruel Hand seems to do the opposite of what Deez Nuts did to the crowd. Cruel Hand brings a very energetic show with a great response of the fans.

Late coming bands Naysayer and Brutality Will Prevail got the chance to bring a split-set in between Cruel Hand's and Terror's sets.  Thumbs up for the organisation to make the schedule so incredibly tight and still not creating too much delay in the end.

The keepers of the faith, named Terror are never dissapointing if you put them on the right stage. Compared to Groezrock earlier this year, you can say that if Terror plays a stage that is not open to stagedive or sing along, it just it not the same.  Ieperfest's open stages are very important for the atmosphere that makes hardcore so unique and that is something also Terror noticed. The set was opened with 'Stick Tight' and of course their goodbye song was -guess what- 'Keepers Of The Faith'.

Nice fact: Converge's soundcheck was a rather -what should I call it...-. Well, let's just say that it kind or reminded of a man giving birth to a child, in a rather painful way.
Darkest Hour succesfully amused the crowd with lots of new material and threw in some good old stuff like 'The Sadist Nation'. Some good old metal cannot do harm. But the music can harm your sunglasses in an indirect way by making you move, lose the glasses and then they simply break under your own feet. No worries, the Brutality crew has been building those broken pieces together again during the entire weekend and some of them even ended up starting a new life, among rockstars.



Darkest hour: no broken glasses, no party. 

Bolt Thrower, an exentric headliner. This British death metal band plays only a few festivals every summer, which means this show is unique. Bolt Thrower used to be a punkband, but changed sound over the years. Around half of the amount of people started to leave the festival before and during the very last set of the festival, since most of them came to see hardcorebands. Only some reviewers, a bunch of metalfreaks and shitworkers and few a hardcorefans remained at the main stage to see those British guys (and one woman playing the bass) decently break down the stage.

Nice fact: Bolt Thrower formed 26 years ago while having a conversation in the restroom.


This 20th edition of Ieperfest was a blast. Next to the hardcoreband in the line-up, some room is left for other related genres as well. Now that the summer edition has come to an end, the organisation is already taking care of the Winter edition, which takes place every early Februar. See you there!

Love,
Brutality Blog



By Glenn Heyse

Interview with Bruno Vandevyvere from the Ieperfest organisation

Just a few more days before the Ieper Hardcore Festival starts. To learn some more about what the festival is all about and to get to know who are setting those 3 days of utopia up year after year we decided to interview Bruno Vandevyvere: Ieperfest booking and communication responsible.

Ieperfest celebrates its 20th birthday and grew out to be one of the biggest hardcore festivals in Europe. Can you tell where it all began? 
The festival started back in 1992 at the Vort’n Vis club and has become the world’s longest running underground hardcore festival. Some of the bands that played the first 2-day edition were ABOLITION (DE), BLINDFOLD (BE), IRONSIDE (UK), FEEDING THE FIRE (NL), NATIONS ON FIRE (NL/FR), NO MORE (LU), SHORTSIGHT (BE), SPIRIT OF YOUTH (BE) etc. Ieperfest is organised by 2 Belgian, not-for-profit DIY collectives sharing the same geographical & ideological roots: Republyk Vort’n Vis & Genet records.
These days Ieperfest is an independent 3-day Hardcore household name that wants to offer a stage to an international variety of underground bands. On top of that we also focus on keeping the festival as ecological as possible. We have been offering vegan food only since the very start and there’s a huge More Than Music tent with room for debate and NGO stands.

What is for you personally the biggest highlight of all Ieperfest editions?

Surprisingly perhaps, the biggest highlight is not any of the multiple fantastic bands we have booked over the years. The fact that we made so many great friends during these 20 editions, some of them we never would have met if it wasn’t for the fest, is way more important to me. Some of them we see back year after year, some we just see occasionally and some of them we will never meet again but we are happy to have gotten to know them at a certain point!



Which bands would you like to book that you have never been able to have booked before? 
There’s a bunch of bands that never played the festival before and that we surely want to book some day: AS I LAY DYING, BOYSETSFIRE, CAVE IN, CRO-MAGS, CULT OF LUNA, DEATH THREAT, DRI, GOOD RIDDANCE, HATEBREED, HIGH ON FIRE, JOB FOR A COWBOY, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, LAMB OF GOD, NEUROSIS, RINGWORM, SLAPSHOT, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, SUICIDE SILENCE … to name just a few. These are some of the bigger bands, but there are also a great deal of really superb smaller bands that we want to book sooner or later.



Have you taken care of particular preparations related to what happened with the storm last year at the Pukkelpop festival? 
Yes, obviously. Even if we were pretty well prepared the last few years already, we added more safety measures for this edition. All was carefully planned under supervision of the local authorities and fire department. We are prepared for the worst, but hope the festival will take place in the best possible conditions. Actually, the weather forecasts for the weekend look pretty promising!



Everything eatable at the festival is vegan. How did you come up with the idea to make Ieperfest vegan?Ieperfest has been offering 100% vegan food since the very start in 1992. Some of us are vegans and we think it’s a great compassionate, healthy and environmentally friendly way of living. Ieperfest has been trying to spread this message since the beginning. 20 years later we still take a strong stance, promoting our views any way we can. For more info check the “Why vegan” part on the food page on the website. (http://www.ieperfest.com/2012/food)



How do you see the future of Ieperfest?
That’s a tricky one. We hope to continue the way we have been organising the festival so far. Growing a bit year after year, offering a great mix of all sorts of bands and not selling out on our ideals! On the contrary, there’s still room for improvement for the green policy and MTM stage. We want to work on that for sure!

For more info:  http://www.ieperfest.com

Never heard of Ieperfest before? Then this will surely enlighten you: