MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD are back, much to the surprise of many fans. Even though rumors of the band doing rehearsals floated around during 2009 and 2010, hardly anyone believed that the band might come back with a full album anytime soon. And now “Do Not Resuscitate” is finished, packed, and released. Twelve new songs of pure aggression, delivered in the well-known MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD-style. Drummer Colin Kercz answered my questions regarding the bands’ whereabouts in the past years, the songwriting of “Do Not Resuscitate”, and the future plans. Interview Back in early 2007 you've released a statement in which you've expressed your disgust of (then)-today's hardcore scene. After that had been said, you’ve vanished. What have you done since then?


Since 2007 MPB had been essentially dormant. During this time we wrote and recorded a new record and everyone was in contact regularly, but there were some label issues and other delays that held up the release for several years. In many respects this suited us all just fine because we had done a full world tour on “Merciless” and we’d been on the road for about 2 years straight doing that. We all agreed that we’d been just about everywhere we had wanted to go with those songs and we would wait to get some new jams out before touring again….it was a conscious decision to not be that band that was in your town every few months just for the hell of it, or because we didn’t know what else to do with ourselves. It was also a good time to hang back to focus on other parts of our lives that generally fray at the edges or full-on fall apart while you’re dedicating yourself to being a musical hobo who lives in a van and is never home for more than a few weeks.



Did you follow the hardcore scene since 2007 at all? If yes, did it change over the years or is the scene still the same, riddled with shitty bands, trend kids and fashion victims?


“The scene” is a bit of an opaque concept now, and probably always has been. Hardcore has always had lots of sub-genres, but it has gotten to such a level now that lots of bands that are associated with “the scene” have sort of transcended the genre altogether and drawn in lots of outside kids. So it is tough to disparage “what hardcore has become” when you start seeing more metal kids or people that don’t really understand the roots or culture of the genre at shows. In many ways it is an indication of the success of this sound and it is cool that it is spreading. However, I think lots of us still do long for the days when it took more effort to discover the whole thing. You had to go to every show just to be sure that you got the flyers for the next shows upcoming. And you knew no venue could last more than a few months so you always had to keep involved to be sure you didn’t lose your link to the whole thing. Now you just go online and Google upcoming shows and can pick and choose so easily. There are lots of kids who come and go and really never understand what it is all about, but also it is not all just old dudes that really get it and are true believers. It is all just mixed together and for us it doesn’t really matter as long as people get to have fun and feel that they take something away from it. We’ve always just been psyched to have a chance to play music, travel all over the world and meet some of the best and most genuine people. Our main complaint with “the scene” was just some of the career ambition and the overtly business-like approaches we saw. For us it was always just a passion. It wasn’t a business or a career and to treat it as such seemed insincere. We tolerated some of those business aspects as a practicality of being able to pursue our passion full time, but we never let that aspect corrupt what we were doing. Those concerns never changed the songs we wrote or the tours we did. We’re never on tour just to make this month’s rent and we’re never putting out some record of totally compromised jams just because we think it will help our mass appeal.



When did you decide to get the band back together and start working on new songs?


We took a break of a few months at the end of 2006, but immediately got back to writing songs after that. The band never actually “broke up” because the intention was always to do a new record and play more shows once the songs were out. It just ended up taking much longer than expected.


How long did you need to complete the songwriting for "Do Not Resuscitate"? Did you discard songs prior to the recording sessions?


The music for DNR was written in the span of about a month in 2007. Justin and I locked away in Staten Island for about a week that winter and got the shells of all of the new jams put together. Then the rest of the band got involved over email and the details were hashed out by swapping Garageband demos online over the subsequent weeks. This is how we had written the previous record as well and it works for us. It’s a bit impersonal, but it is efficient and it allows us to scrutinize ideas methodically. We don’t want this to be rocket science and we’re suspect of any thing that is taking a long time to develop since a good hardcore record is meant to have a spontaneity about it that is easily lost if you’re pondering too long or tinkering too much. A good idea that is going to work is usually evident right from the start without much further consideration.


Where did you record the album? How did it feel to ban another MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD-album on tape?


The guitars, bass, and drums were recorded at the Wild Arctic in Queens, NY with Dean Baltulonis. Dean recorded “Merciless” and “Our Lady of Annihilation” and he is really good to work with because he is super honest and he tells you straight up when you’re doing a take that just wouldn’t cut it. That guy has a great ear and he always knows when you’re fucking something up long before you do. It’s like he senses that you’re about to do some half assed performance and stops you before you do!


Rob did the vocals at Sine studios in Philadelphia because they would let him indulge his fantasy to record half the tracks screaming at a microphone down a hallway and the other half using a hand held mic while hanging upside down from some monkey bars….Dean wasn’t going to put up with that nonsense.


Also, I ended up doing one drum track with Ken Olden in Maryland after we forgot to record the song during the main drum session. It’s ridiculous, but true! By the time we went to the studio in 2008 we had multiple mp3 versions of each song floating around in emails and one just slipped through the cracks! If you have a band be sure that at least two of you go to the studio at any one time and spare yourself these sort of humiliating oversights.


How did you get in contact with josh/ bullet tooth? Have you been in contact with him constantly even after you turned your back on hardcore?


We’ve been in touch with Josh all along and the intention was always to put the new record out on Trustkill, which subsequently became Bullet Tooth. This relationship goes back to the very beginning of the band so there was never any consideration of dealing with anyone else. Josh has had some issues over the past few years while he was reorganizing during some turbulent times in the business he is in. That accounted for some, but not all, of the delays in the release of the new record. But ultimately, the timing for the release, while much later than originally planned, is working out really well as all of us are still super proud of the songs on DNR and we’re feeling totally rid of some of our earlier cynicism. Playing shows again and getting positive feedback from people on the new jams is renewing our drive to do more with the band as well as reminding us what our core motivation was for doing this in the first place.


Your lyrics on "Do Not Resuscitate" are one of the most aggressive and hateful I've ever read - seems like a lot of anger and frustration made their way into it, right? How long did you need to write them all down?


It sounds cliché, but all of us were in some sort of unstable and frustrating places in our lives when writing the new jams. After our Australia tour in 2006 we all knew that we had just had an amazing few years of shows, fun and travel. But in order to ensure we were going to be able to be honest about doing the band at any point in the future we were going to have to scale back. We wanted there to be some urgency to the band and we didn’t want to just be going through the motions. I can honestly say that we forced ourselves to take a break before ever giving less than 100% at a show or doing a tour just to make some cash….that fact is super important to us. But this meant all of us had to shift gears and try new things. That process is full of dislocation and I think we captured some of that uncertainty and frustration with the new songs.


Which track and which lyrics have become your personal favorite?


I like all the new songs for different reasons so picking a favorite is tough. I think “Altered Beast” and “Upstate Ghost” are some of the meanest songs we’ve written so maybe those are my favorites. However, what I like best overall is that this record has some D beats for the first time in MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD songs and I think that speed really suits the sound. Also, we finally got to slip a CANINUS riff into MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD on one of the new songs so that is awesome too.
Do you think that today's hardcore kids can still be reached by lyrics of a song or the message of a band?


I know for sure that they can. We have had lots of people write us to tell us that our music has meant something to them or helped them through a time that sucked or helped them find the strength to face a problem in their life. These messages are the greatest compliments we could ever receive. They give meaning to our whole endeavor and make us realize that lots of people do want to find some seriousness and intelligence in this music along with a feeling of catharsis and release. Bands with substantive and serious messages are not just a thing of the past in hardcore. Neither are intelligent kids that are seeking meaning and expecting something more from this music than just mosh riffs.


What are your tour plans for this year? Your European tour is going to be a short one - any chance you might come back later this year on a longer tour?


In March we are just coming over to Europe for four shows (Moscow, Rosswein, Essen and Paris). This is definitely not enough as Europe has been really kind to MPB and we love to play there, maybe more than anywhere else. We’re considering a longer stint later in the year, but this should be a good warm up. Apart from that, we have a few US festivals in Seattle and New York booked and several more offers hanging out there that are yet to be confirmed. At this point, it feels awesome to be playing shows again and we’re going to do our best to keep these positive vibes up. So we’ll not be going out on tour because we feel obligated to promote the new record or because we want to sell some merch or whatever. But we will be selecting shows and tours that we’re genuinely excited about playing and we'll be as active as possible within those parameters.


Do you pick the bands you're touring with or don't you care about that at all?


Sometimes you pick them and sometimes they pick you. Always depends on the situation. But we’re open to playing with any band that is like-minded and/or sincere about what they do. The only conflict I’ve felt is when we’ve been on shows with christian bands. Most of them think they’re up to something positive and uplifting since they’re mostly just taking a narrow view that ignores the nefarious aspects of their “faith.” Either that or they’re just using it as marketing ploy to get bigger and reach a larger audience. But regardless, I disagree with using hardcore or punk as a vehicle for promoting an ideology so openly divisive in the modern world and that has such an abysmal historical record of suppressing science, encouraging discrimination and championing ignorance. It’s sad that a “scene” that is meant to be free-thinking and independent has let this Trojan horse even half way through the gate.


What have you been doing between 2007 and today? Did you work on regular jobs, played in other bands...?


We’ve all ended up all over the map doing some pretty random stuff. Justin is the only one still in Brooklyn. He was working on Wall Street before the financial crisis. Since then he has been working with NGOs and began a consulting business that does infrastructure projects in Afghanistan (try working out how to string all that together…..it’s mind boggling, but all true). Rachel finished medical school and is now a pathologist in New Jersey. Not exactly sure what that all entails, but there is hacking up bodies and doing autopsies involved. Both Rachel and Justin have been playing some shows with Indecision from time to time.


Matty is living in Atlanta and has gone from being a hobbyist to becoming a legit full-time photographer. So he is pretty much constantly flying around the country doing photo shoots. Rob is living in Philly and working as a personal trainer. So he’s uber serious about fitness and dude just gets more jacked up every time I see him. He’s still a chess master and also has a new band called Fires and Floods that seriously rules. I’m living in Washington DC and have been playing drums with DAMNATION A.D sporadically. I’m working in international development and recently spent a few months in Southern Sudan with that.


We don’t have any particularly scandalous or newsworthy answers to the “what the hell have you done all these years?” question. It is asked a lot, but unfortunately nobody has been to rehab or doing hard time in some third world prison.


Wise words to end this interview?


Listen to NASUM and the GETO BOYS every day….that’s what I do and it seems to be working.

Thanks for the interview!