BORN FROM PAIN really lived up to their name and went through a difficult time with line up-changes over and over. But finally they got everything sorted out, wrote a couple of songs and recorded “Survival”, which turned out to be another excellent record. Now-vocalist Rob and guitar player Dom told about the past year, the new record and what hardcore means to them.Interview BORN FROM PAIN has gone through a tough time, with Che quitting the band and his replacement Kevin being forced to leave the band after only one
year. And finally Roel (dr.) left too. May the title of your new album
be a nod to that time?
Rob:
Not really, The title of the record is about the situation a lot of people get confronted with in the world today. The world is more and more in a state of emergency because a group of elite rich people is steering all the wealth and resources into their direction. The masses have less and less. That is what the title refers to really…
Seems like you’re a bit like MOTÖRHEAD: both bands have only one original
member left in the line-up…
Dom:
*laughs* yeah, kind of. From the original line-up only Rob is left. At the same time though, Karl has been in the band for about 8 years now, I've played in Born From Pain for 3 years plus 2 more helping out when Stefan wasn't available. And even the new members, Roy and Andries, know the band from the start. I guess it would be too easy to just label Born From Pain as a band with just a lot of (ex-)members. But I like that comparison: BORN FROM PAIN, the “MOTÖRHEAD” of hardcore *laughs*.
What are the lyrics on "survival" about? Do you think that bands should
have a message - and does born from pain have one? Seeing that you're
running a blog http://www.survivalstateofmind.blogspot.com/ the answer might
be given already…
Rob:
Well, I think that living your life with your eyes open is a must. One just cannot ignore what is going on and the situation it puts us all in… I do not think that every band should be political or have a message. I mean, more and more bands, people, artists, etc. are becoming more critical towards the situation in the world today, but so are a lot of people on the streets because they feel the crisis in their wallets and how it directly influences their lives. It is good that there are bands that just sing about other stuff.
How long o you need to write the lyrics for a song?
Rob:
It all depends on inspiration. Sometimes it takes weeks to find the right words, but mostly it goes pretty fast. The initial idea pops up in my head pretty quickly and I just refine it over the weeks after.
Wwhen you compare "Survival" with "War", do you see many differences? How
did the constant line-up changes influence the songwriting process for
"survival"?
Dom:
There are a few minor differences between “Survival” and “War”, yes. First of all, Rob and his vocal style adds a new quality to the music. He sounds more pissed off and rougher. Over the course of the whole album, the vocals sound more diverse. The musical part of Survival is again groovy, hard and aggressive, but we put even more emphasis on strong melodies and an improved songwriting.
The line-up changes didn't have a lot of effect for the whole process since the main core that wrote the last album (being Karl, Rob and me) stayed the same. Andries joined the band when all songs for “Survival” were finished already. I'm sure though he will play an important part for the next record as we all love his former band The Setup and the songs he wrote for them.
Roy however was part of the whole writing process and took BORN FROM PAIN to the next level in terms of a professional pre-production as well as bringing in tons of ideas for a more diverse rhythm section. He is probably the best drummer this band has seen to date and it was very helpful to practice our ideas and riffs with him.
Where do you see born from pain in the current hardcore/metalcore-scene?
Do you think you have the same standing as TERROr, WALLS OF JERICHO and
HATEBREED have?
Dom:
That's hard to say. I guess BORN FROM PAIN has a really good standing within the scene these days. We have a loyal fanbase that keeps coming out to our shows, whenever we're on tour clubs are packed and people are going crazy most of the time, so there's absolutely nothing to complain about.
HATEBREED is probably above all, it's unbelievable how big they got over the last ten years, I don't think any of the bands you mentioned can be compared to their status.
We're grateful for what we as a band achieved over the years and besides that all the bands from your question are good friends of ours, so we don't really take the effort to compare ourselves to certain other bands, especially not to friends. None of the underground scenes, may it be punk, hardcore or metal are really big or interesting enough for a mainstream audience so the least we need is some stupid competition.
We enjoy watching bands on tour every night and are happy when we see people going crazy. It doesn't matter if that's a band supporting us or a band that plays after us.
With 10 years activity in the hardcore-scene, you've witnessed a lot of
changes - what do you think of today's scene? How did it change and what
have been good and bad developments/changes in the last years?
Dom:
Basically I guess the hardcore scene is not that much different than 10 years ago. The only major change that happened - and that doesn't only count for hardcore – is the success of the internet. As much as it's a great tool for bands to promote themselves in an easy and cheap way, it's also a platform where people can just say and do whatever they want with hardly any consequences. Message boards are flooded with opinions, rants and reviews about nearly anything these days. Records are being downloaded long time before they are actually released, trends come and go even faster than 10-15 years ago. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but everything just becomes so fast that sometimes people don't seem to have the will to really check out new stuff.
I remember how hard it was to get certain records, either because it wasn't available in mailorders or stores or because you simply didn't have the money to buy it. The more happy you were though once you finally got it. You would check out the artwork, read the lyrics, listen to it over and over again and not only get used to it but ideally love it in the end.
Today, it takes you 10-20 minutes to download way more than just one record. If you don't like it from the start, you will throw it off your hard drive/ipod/whatever and with 10 more records waiting to be checked out you will hardly give that certain one another chance.
On the other hand, like I said before there's probably a million bands out there people would've never get to know if it wasn't for the internet.
Besides the internet factor, I think the scene is doing well, there's still many many people supporting it in all kinds of ways by running small record labels, promoting shows or generally buying records and merch and coming out to shows. Imagine 4000!! people coming out to a HATEBREED show in Dresden. That wasn't possible 10 years ago. So don't always believe those people trying to tell you that everything was so much better “back then”. Things got shifted, things changed, sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better, but I guess in total it's a strong scene that's doing better than ever before.
Touring has become much more important over the last years (speaking of
trends): did you ever consider to make BORN FROM PAIN a full-time touring
band and try to make a living off it?
Dom:
Well, we probably wouldn't complain if we could make a living with Born From Pain and therefore something we love to do. Right now though we all have to work in normal jobs besides the band. Touring is an essential part of BORN FROM PAIN as well, first of all because we love to travel and play as much as possible and second because you don't really earn a lot of money with just selling CD's these days. The whole market faces serious problems with people just downloading records instead of buying them. It's a big issue for every band and label out there, especially the smaller ones. I know that a lot of labels have to struggle with today's conditions and therefore need their bands to play more than ever before. No one knows yet where this journey ends, but it's a fact that as a band you have to push harder these days to get your name around.
I seems like only few european bands take that step (like NO TRNING BACK), but many many US-band do so. Do you have a theory why it's so
different in europe and the US?
Dom:
The US is just so much bigger than Europe and if you want, you could play 365 days a year without coming back to the same place twice. Whereas in Europe you're somehow limited to certain countries where you can keep coming back easily. To do a (hardcore-)band full-time, it's not a secret that you need to be successful not only in Europe but also in different parts of the world, otherwise you'll simply play too much in the same areas and people might lose interest.
Also, US bands can tour Europe quite easily, people have always supported American bands over here. Often enough even more than their own European bands. The other way round is not working that way. It seems like America is so busy and confident with their own bands that they don't really care about acts from Europe. There's nothing you can really do as a band except for working even harder and not giving up to find people that will believe in you and give you support in any kind of way if you really wanna take the step up to being a full time band.
Do you have any plans to celebrate the 10th anniversay of BORN FROM PAIN? Maybe even perform some songs in the orignal line-up?
Dom:
Actually, that happened already. In 2007 we celebrated 10 years of BORN FROM PAIN in the band's hometown, Heerlen. And exactly as you proposed, the band played a lot of old songs in the original line up as well as songs with nearly everybody who was part of the band at some point. It was also Che's very last show with BORN FROM PAIN. It turned out to be a memorable night with a sold out club, a lot of (old) friends coming out to celebrate with us. Also, people saw a one-time reunion show from DRIFT as well as our friends in CRAWLSPACE and TERROR playing the show.
And I was thinking of 1999, when your first album had been released. What do you think of split-eps? You've never released one, even though it is quite common for hc-bands to do so...
Dom:
BORN FROM PAIN actually released a split-ep some while ago together with New Jersey's REDLINE on GSR Music.
I guess it's quite common because that way young bands can simply split the costs of an output and therefore have an easier way to present their band if they do it all DIY, meaning they have to pay for everything themselves. I know for a fact though that a lot of labels are not to fond of putting out split-cds simply because of the fact that distributors cannot promote them as much as regular full-length albums. So if you're in the happy position that a label wants to support your band by paying for your recordings for example, there's a good chance it will tell you to not put out a split-ep.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of split-ep's, I much rather buy 7” records from bands. I used to like it a lot to spend a small amount of money and get a nice piece of vinyl with a decent layout which gave me the chance to check out a new and fresh band.
But like I said before, I can see why some bands put out split-ep's and if it helps them to save money I don't see any problems with that, go for it!
Will "Survival" be released as a vinyl-version? Maybe with a different
cover art or a bonus track?
Dom:
It will definitely be released as a vinyl version as well. We're in touch with some labels as we speak, so hopefully it's gonna happen very soon. We don't know more details yet concerning artwork or bonus tracks, but it's coming, for sure!
What do you expect of 2009?
Dom:
Besides the tours that are planned already, hopefully we can play some countries again we haven't been to for a while like the US, Russia or Japan. Also, we really wanna tour in China and other Asian countries so let's see if we might get the chance next year.
Of course you will see us on a lot of festivals in summer again. So basically 2009 will be a lot of touring and promoting the new record.
Apart from that we might realize some projects we wanted to work on with some friends, but nothing's certain yet so keep your eyes and ears open for that!
Some final words, shououts, greetings?
Dom:
Thank you very much for the interview! Everybody out there check out “Survival” and come out to one of the shows on Persistence tour, starting on Thursday, 4th of December! You can see us along with great bands like Sick Of It All, Heaven Shall Burn, Terror, H20, Discipline and War Of Ages!
Anything Born From Pain related you will find on either www.bornfrompain.com or myspace.com/bornfrompain.
Also check out our new community suicidenation.org!
Thanks a lot for checking us out!
LOOK FOR TRUTH!
