by Jason Walsh
photos by Helena BXL
(for Hails & Horns Magazine)
Four years have passed since the legendary Alleyway Crew from Queens have dropped a new collection of songs for anxious hardcore fans to devour. “Based on a True Story” marks SICK OF IT ALL’s second collaboration with Danish producer and engineer Tue Madsen, who first worked with the New York Hardcore legends on the 2006 “Death to Tyrants” LP. This is SOIA’s ninth full-length studio endeavor and harkens back to the roots and fury of the underground movement from which they came some quarter century ago. From beginning to end, “Based on a True Story” is a relentless, full-on assault that captures the true nature of one of the five borough’s greatest hardcore outfits. Heavy, destructively fast, and menacing, it again proves SICK OF IT ALL remains at the top of their game.
New modern-day anthems emerge from the current release, like “Dominated,“ “The Divide,“ and “Lowest Common Denominator,” continuing to cement the band’s impact as an immovable force in hardcore. “Based on a True Story” is just what old-schoolers needed to fuel the fires of yesteryear, while the next generation of upstarts have a chance for a history lesson in what is the standard for NYHC.
I had a chance to talk with frontman Lou Koller, just back from Denmark, where they recorded the new album at Starstruck Studios in Copenhagen. Koller explained how they came to find themselves tracking in the darkness of Scandinavian winter, the future touring of the band, and the imminent arrival of his firstborn.
JW: How are you doing tonight, man?
KOLLER: Pretty good, pretty good.
JW: And how are things going for the band right now?
KOLLER: Uh, everything seems to be going really good right now. The album came out and it’s getting good reviews, and more importantly, all of our fans seem to like it. I have friends that peruse all the different hardcore, punk, and metal bars and they’re saying everyone is speaking well of it so I’m psyched.
JW: Well, that’s good, and it’s good to hear good things from people out there about something new that you put out. I’ve been a fan for a while and let me tell you, this new record hits hard. It’s one of the best things I think you guys have put out in a long time. You’ve got to be really proud of it.
KOLLER: Yeah, definitely, I mean we are proud of it. Back when we did “Death to Tyrants,” we thought we had to prove why we were going to be around. That was like our 20-year anniversary and we had to prove why we were still around and I think it took us in the right direction and we’re just going from there, you know.
JW: Tell me about recording this. You didn’t do this one over here in the States, did you?
KOLLER: No, we went to Denmark. We went to Denmark this time.
JW: And what made you decide to go there?
KOLLER: Well, we had done “Death to Tyrants” with Tue Madsen, we asked him to come here to New York and we did it in Brooklyn. We were all real pleased with the whole result and the sound and he was telling us, “you know, if I was in a studio I was more familiar with, I could really do something…I could make it even better.” We didn’t believe him, but we were like, “sure, y’know, we want to work with you again when we get to that point, we’ll try whatever you want.” When we called him up to do the new record, he was like, “can you come to Denmark?” and he worked it out. For some reason, it cost us less for all four of us to fly to Denmark and we lived in the apartment at the studio, and it was cheaper than flying him here and putting him up in a hotel for a month.
JW: Right…so how long were you over there?
KOLLER: Like three-and-a-half weeks.
JW: So what was it like being over there? I mean, you’re not at home and everything is unfamiliar, and you’re trying to lay down this new stuff. What was that like?
KOLLER: What was good was that it was November, so it was winter and winter over there is very dark all the time and it rained a lot, so we had really nothing to do but concentrate on the record. We’ve been through Denmark a lot and there’s clubs that we’ve played there that we love, but just because of the fact that it was so dark and raining all the time, we concentrated and got the stuff done really fast.
JW: So did that dark and somber mood kind of lead into this record?
KOLLER: (laughs) You know, inside the studio it was more lighthearted. We just wanted to get it done because we were really psyched about the songs we had written and when we sent the demos to Tue, he loved them. He was like, “yeah, I think this is some really strong stuff,” and it all just clicked in there. You know, the darkness outside…I think it was more of the fact of just staying in and recording as opposed to recording here, where when we were doing stuff in Brooklyn, a lot of friends dropping in, which is good but then it kind of takes you out of the moment. Some of the guys would be looking at their watch, like “well, I’ve got to leave to beat traffic home.” There, it was all just hanging out and recording the record.
JW: So, you guys were kind of captured.
KOLLER: (laughs) Yeah, yeah. But there was cool stuff going on, too. We were all walking to the supermarket one night, and Tue points at this apartment building right around the block and he goes, “yeah, that used to be the studio (formerly SWEET SILENCE STUDIOS in Copenhagen) where METALLICA recorded ‘Ride the Lightning’ and ‘Master of Puppets’” and we were like, “oh, man, y’know, that’s like history right there.” The producer, what the hell is his name (FLEMMING RASMUSSEN), he produced “Master of Puppets” and “Ride the Lightning.” He came in to talk to Tue one night when we were all recording and it was cool meeting him. That was fun, yeah.
JW: That’s very cool. So you were there, you got a lot done very quickly, and you had a pretty cool experience. Now, you’re back home, so where does SICK OF IT ALL go from here?
KOLLER: Touring. Promoting. Pushing. We’re really psyched. We’re really happy that people like the new songs. We’re really excited to play them and we did a small test run almost. We went out with AFI in England for about two weeks and we put three new songs in the set, one of which was released on our MYSPACE, and people just loved them. Even the two they didn’t really know, they really got into. So we were psyched about that, but now it’s just a matter of touring. The only thing is, instead of going out right away, like now we should be on the road, me and my wife are having our first baby in the next couple of weeks actually.
JW: Wow…
KOLLER: Yeah, yeah, y’know, because Armand, our drummer, has been through it twice already. We’ve taken the first month after the album, we’re just flying out and doing some festivals in Europe and then a couple shows on the East Coast, and then more towards the middle of summer, we’re going to start doing like the West Coast and all that, you know. Come fall, it’s full touring all over the world again.
JW: Very cool, but first and foremost, congratulations.
KOLLER: Thank you, thank you.
JW: So you’ve got to be a little nervous and racked right now. You’ve got this new record out, and you have all this stuff you need to do, but you’ve got a baby coming, dude.
KOLLER: Yeah, that’s the only thing that makes me nervous. Everybody’s like, “all you’re having a kid, it’s your first one,” and you know what, my wife’s really smart, y’know, I’m not worried. She knows everything about it, she’s read every book, done everything, all the research. I’m not scared around babies. The only thing we’re trying to do is, we live in a one-bedroom apartment, we’re just making room, y’know, and that means getting rid of a lot of stuff that I love, but you gotta do that (laughs).
JW: Hey, you know Lou, that’s what storage facilities are for.
KOLLER: Exactly (laughs).
JW: That’s very cool. So, coming into the year, you’ve got to get through all this, y’know, what you have going on in your personal life and all, are you planning on going out on the road with anybody? Is there anything set up right now or are you guys just waiting to see what happens before you start booking anything?
KOLLER: There’s stuff in the works…what stinks is that a lot of bands that we wanted to tour with that wanted to tour with us, like the guys in MUNICIPAL WASTE, they just finished touring on their last record in the States. But, we were talking to the singer and he has a hardcore band (NO FRIENDS). They’re really good. They’re like a harder-edge DAG NASTY and we’re thinking of taking them out on some our East Coast dates. THE CANCER BATS just released a record, but they’re on a bunch of bigger tours. Just a different band that we’d like to tour with. We have stuff in the works for the fall. I know Europe, we’re probably going to go with…EVERGREEN TERRACE I think is one of the bands that’s been talking to us, asking if they could go on the European tour with us. They’re a good band with a younger following, which is something we need to incorporate, y’know, trying to get more younger kids into the band again.
JW: And you know, it’s amazing. You guys have been doing this a long time and there’s so many generations of kids, adults, parents, hell, even grandparents, that are still going to shows. What’s it like still going out there after all this time, seeing the diversity of faces in the audience?
KOLLER: To me it’s amazing, because we have a big following in Europe, to see people who have been coming to our shows since we first went there in ‘92, bringing their kids and their kids are teenagers now and their kids are “oh my god, I can’t believe my parents know SICK OF IT ALL,” like we’re some kind of big rock band, y’know. To us, that’s amazing. The kids over there really get the band and we’ve done shows with all these young and up-and-coming bands, like BRING ME THE HORIZON. We played a show with them and when their fans actually stayed and watched us and MADBALL. We did a festival together in Holland and we had all these young kids at our merch booth, buying our shirts and all this other stuff. I was looking at the promoter who was at the festival and I go, “you see, if we could just mix these bands more, y’now, to keep it going.”
JW: And that’s just further proof that hardcore is going to live forever.
KOLLER: I hope so (laughs). I mean there’s so many good bands, young bands coming up, and you have, like this year, some of the older bands like MAXIMUM PENALTY put out a great record, KILLING TIME’S record was really good. You have new records coming out from MADBALL later in the year, and you know that’s always great.
JW: No doubt. No doubt. So, to people out there that might read this and haven’t had a chance to pick up the record, what would you say to encourage them to grab a copy and come out and see SICK OF IT ALL.
KOLLER: This is the record that I think we’ve captured our live essence, the sound and the power we have when we’re live. We’ve tried that for years and we’ve come close, “Death to Tyrants” was the closest. This one is definitely right, but ten times bigger. It just sounds bigger. It sounds like live and in your face and it encompasses all of SICK OF IT ALL. We’ve never shied away from being heavy and aggressive, but we also love, y’know, we grew up, also along with the metal stuff, we grew up loving sing-a-long punk stuff and Oi stuff, like SHAM 69 and ANTI-NOWHERE LEAGUE, stuff like that, and the MISFITS, and we put that in our sound too. I think what we’ve learned to do is how to weave all that together seamlessly where it’s not like, “ok, here’s the heavy song, oh, this is the sing-a-long song.” People won’t even notice when it goes in.
JW: Now my last question for you, Lou. All these years later, is this still fun for you?
KOLLER: Yeah. I always say if it’s not fun, I’m not going to do it anymore. And I mean, we’ve done it all from, we started off in van tours, then we hit buses, now we go back and forth, depending on the economy of the tour. We just did the tour with AFI through England in a van, and we had some eight-hour drives in the van. The funny thing was the way the van was set up, when we got to the airport, we opened up the doors and there were six seats, three and three facing each other. We looked at each other and climbed in and said, “well, either this will make us stronger or we’re going to break up after this tour because we have to stare at each other‘s faces the whole time.” And it worked, we had a great time. We were just cracking each other up the whole time.
JW: That’s great. So at the end of the day, there’s no slowing down SICK OF IT ALL?
KOLLER: Not yet, not yet (laughs).
“Based on a True Story” is available on Century Media Records. SICK OF IT ALL will be busy on the road the rest of this year supporting “Based on a True Story.” In September, they hitch up with STREET DOGS, DEVILS’ BRIGADE, FLATFOOT 56, and VICES for some dates in the Southeast, then link up with WISDOM AND CHAINS and THE MONGOLOIDS for some shows in the Northern U.S. and Canada. Following this will be runs in Europe, including the NEW YORK UNITED tour with MADBALL in October and the PERSISTENCE tour in December with EVERGREEN TERRACE, UNEARTH, SEPULTURA, and the long-anticipated reformation of Boston’s BLOOD FOR BLOOD.
Shortly after this interview, Lou and Melissa Koller brought Aurelia Josette Koller into the world. The hardcore legacy continues…
Hails & Horns article and stream of "Based on a True Story"
www.sickofitall.com
