This Routine Is Hell

They're Dutch, they're the kind of band most moshers will think way too fast and politcal. They should be the band everyone talks about on the Bridge 9 board. Their record is everything you look for in a hardcorerecord. They're This Routine Is Hell. After delevering one of the best records of the year and being featured in the NY Times, I thought it was time to send singer Noam some questions.

There’s a Paint It Black vibe all around the new record. Is that band a big influence on you?

Ever since the first demo people have compared us with Paint It Black. Musically and lyricswise Paint It Black has been an influence. Yet while writing the record we tried to get a sound of our own, in which I think we succeeded.
Paint It Black is an influence because their music is progressive but stays within the borders of hardcorepunk. They have the right attitude which combines aggression with intellect. This shows in the way the band goes about and is something we try to do as well.

Where does the name This Routine Is Hell come from?

It’s about the majority of people who live their lives without passion, always taking the easiest way. Never thinking about the consequences or the possibilities of their lives. It also represents the danger of how easy it is to live such a life.
We play in this band because we want to do something that goes beyond established paths. Creativity and constructivism to fill the routine’s void. Yet one can wonder if the current hardcorepunk scene with it’s myspace, facebook isn’t part of that establishment.

Even before your recordrelease show you offered it online as a free download.

During our talks with Shield Recordings, who released the vinyl, we told them we wanted to put the record online. We have always been a ‘try-before-you-buy’ band. And it is fair since we all have a lot of records on our iPods as well.
A lot of records are available online anyway. Doing it ourselves enables us to be sure that the quality is allright. This way we also were able to enclose the lyrics.
I don’t think it will reduce the sale of ‘The Velvet Crusade’ in the end.


What is the story behind the song ‘Tied Down’?

How easy and the amount of joy with which people choose to spend their days before the television, accept a life full of work and the total depression and passive society we’re all a part of.
Mass culture, mass production and mass entertainment make it possible to live a ‘great’ life without ever having to really try and make something special of it.
For me it was an important decision when I realized that I don’t want to become a part of it. I want to inspire myself and others to be special.


You just got back from Africa. What have you done there?

For two months I have worked in a remote area of Rwanda, trying to get local highschools connected to the internet. One of the goals of the project is to bridge the big communication gap between the big city and the rural areas. To school the youth and make them less depended on the agrarian culture.
It gave me a good view on their lives and made me think about the positive and the negative sides of development aid.
The song ‘Crooks & Robbers’ is about the IMF and the Worldbank passing out the wrong loans which don’t fit in the economical structure of third world countries. As a whole the western economical policy destroys more than it builds.

Myspace: This Routine Is Hell