Antillectual: 'We can't force people to listen to the whole album'

With a right wing government cutting on everything cultural and environmental friendly it's good to have a band like Antillectual around who still struggle for a better world by singing about change. Their new record 'Start From Scratch' recently came out one more labels than there are documents published on Wikileaks. Without further ado read what drummer Riekus has to say about downloading, guestsingers and punk.

You have spammed the international punkrock community a song a week for the past months. Besides getting some attention from everywhere this also might make people judge the record as a whole based on the snippets they hear. Aren't you afraid of that?
People will always judge a band by individual songs, there’s no use denying that. Whether it’s that one song they hear on your myspace page or the lyrics of a particular song, certain songs will stand out more than others. As a band, we like to think of an album as a whole, more than just the songs by themselves. Not everyone will share that opinion, so be it. We do encourage people to listen to the album as a whole, for example by putting a full stream + free download of our album online after the release date. We can’t force people to listen to the whole album rather than just their favorite songs, nor do we intend to force them. I guess the most we can do is offer the whole package and allow people to listen to it in whatever way they prefer.



'Start from Scratch!' is the record title. Do you also see it as a new beginning for Antillectual, it being the first record with a new bass player?
The album title is a quote from the first song, which is about the crises we are facing these days, and how we feel these crises allow us to improve things or start over. We chose the album title because this theme recurs in quite some of the songs. Of course, we as a band are also facing a somewhat new start, with Yvo leaving the band and Tom joining, and we feel this ‘new start’ has presented us with a lot of opportunities to change and evolve, but that’s not the reason why we chose the title.

As a political band with a somewhat left-wing ideology you guys must be very happy with the new Dutch government. Finally there's something to really be angry about. Or do you rather see a total leftist government?
There is no government like no government! But the new government sure provides us with enough inspiration for a whole new album, if not a double album! But it would be rather cynical to praise the new government for being inspiring for revolt. I’d rather see a government taking care of ALL its people in stead of the already wealthy white males. A total(itarian) left wing government doesn’t sound very appealing to me either, China and Cuba don’t seem very nice places to me. I don’t think any government can fulfil my needs, let alone all people in one country, but I’m sure we can easily do better than what we came up with now. On the other hand, why worry about politics when commercial enterprises have so much more influence on our daily lives than any government can ever have?



I guess working with thousands of different labels on the release of 'Testimony' paid off for you guys, since you have even expanded the amount of labels releasing the new record. So what are the benefits and what are the negative aspects of doing things this way?
Working with several independent labels on “Testimony” payed off really well for us, indeed. The main benefit of working this way is that each label is extremely specialized in their own region. They know where to promote our album, where and how to sell it, and where to book shows to promote the album. I don’t think any one (European) label can cover the areas we cover all together through the different labels, from the USA to Europe to Russia. On the downside, working with 10 labels at the same time requires a lot of time and communication, to have everyone on the same page, and have the same agreements with everyone. With the experience we have from releasing “Testimony”, it has become easier to arrange all this, and in the end we’re extremely glad to have the support of all these labels. The benefits are definitely bigger than the negative aspects.

One of the new songs features Chris Hannah of Propagandhi. From a commercial point of view this is a good thing, because more people got to know the name of Antillectual. But being a punk band wouldn't it be more logical to ask the local tramp to do some screaming? Why of all people you could have asked did you go with Chris?
I don’t really see how ‘being a punk band’ makes this a strange decision? Chris has been in a punk band for years himself. We like to aim high, but we never counted on it to actually work out. When it did we were happy as little kids. Having said that, we also have our local hero Heleen from Midnight Menace doing guest vocals, but I don’t think she would appreciate being called a tramp ;)
On a more serious note: Propagandhi is a band that has inspired us for years and years. To have one of their members contribute to our album is a dream come true. We didn’t ask Chris to contribute from a commercial point of view, and if we had done that i doubt he would even have considered helping out. Actually, according to the Propagandhi Facebook it cost us 7000 dollar to get him to sing on our album, from a commercial viewpoint a very bad idea.


Whereas you probably could write a record full of punkrock hits, you choose the difficult way. Why?
Interesting! We feel this album is a pretty big leap towards a more accessible, poppy sound. Compared to “Testimony”, the songs on this album are far less complicated or technical, and more melodic, so it’s interesting to hear that we still choose “the difficult way”. I guess it has never been our intention to produce only punkrock hit songs and anthems, and honestly, that would make a pretty boring record. We are not such good songwriters that we can actually chose or decide to write hits or not, it’s more trial and a lot of error in our case. Let’s leave the hit albums to the Pennywises and Bad Religions (pun intended!). We enjoy a lot of styles of punkrock, hardcore, orgcore and emo (even some metal), and i think those influences find their way into the styles we play on this record. Difficult? No. Variation? Yes.

You must have done some interviews already about the new record. What was the most original question, and what did you answer?
We’ve been getting quite some creative questions lately, but i think the weirdest one must have been an interview from an English magazine we literally got this morning containing only 1 question: “What was the one thing that has completely changed, or ruined your life? Please use around 500 words”. The answer was a pretty obvious one: this band. On the other hand we got an interview from the Incubate Festival website asking us if we had played in Holland before and, if yes, what was our experience.


What are the plans from here? Touring, touring, touring? Any new countries you're going to explore?
Yes, touring, touring and more touring! We sure wish to play at least all the countries where our record is released, and that includes the USA and Russia, of which the latter is new to us. Besides that we are planning to play shows and festivals in places we haven’t been before, Slovakia for example. We’re always interested in going new places and returning to places we’ve enjoyed playing. Willem will be doing some acoustic shows too, something we haven’t done for a while. And we will be doing everything we can to get our record out to people. To begin with, we’ll be offering all our music for free download at http://music.antillectual.com as of November 1st. Please go on, download and enjoy!

Antillectual - Start From Scratch! - cd/lp

Antillectual has been spamming punksites for the past couple of months, streaming one track of their new record once a week. To be honest based on those streams I expected a record that I would enjoy less than 'Testimony' their previous full length. Well I guess I am an old fashioned 'album guy' because hearing all the songs together has made me change my thoughts.

If you don't know who Antillectual are, they're Face To Face with the political mindset of Propaghandi and borrowing the acoustic guitar from Tom Against Me! once in a while. Or you could say they're a bunch of Dutch leftwing punks who listen to nineties skatepunk, contemporary emo and sometimes grow a beard to appeal to the recent orgcore crowd.

Today the Obama government has lost a lot of votes to teadrinking, conservative, crazy Republican candidates. You kind of wish everyone of those voters who made this happen received 'Start From Scratch!'. Antillectual seems to cover part of the election topics being the crisis ('Every Crisis Is A Moral Crisis') and the fact that the US is not longer the superpower it used to be ('Chinese Takeover').

I do doubt if conservative Americans would like to hear a catcy song about America as a negative role model ('America's Worst Role Model') and that eating meat isn't all that good ('Some Of My Best Friends Are Meat Eaters'). Well I guess the band would be missing their reason to exist if they didn't fuel the left wing fire here and there.

'Start From Scratch!' is the most melodic Antillectual record to date. The band tended to get lost in their own music on previous releases thus making their songs less catchy than they could have been. This time however the band has succeeded in writing a record that balances their political views with enjoyable punksongs. The additions of guestvocalist like Chris Hannah from Propaghandi doesn't add that much to the song ('Out The Ground From Under Our Feet') but it's cool for any band to have a person they are inspired by cooperate on a track. Then again the extra vocals from the lesser known Heleen from Midnight Menace ('Buyer's Remorse' and 'So Much More') do add that extra flavour.

This record is a new highlight for the Dutch punkscene and together with The Real Danger they are the leading force not only in The Netherlands but in the whole of Europe. Both bands are as good as any of the bigger US bands.

'Start From Scratch' can be downloaded from music.antillectual.com but I suggest you head over to the Shield store because the artwork is amazing enough to get the 'real' thing.

After The Fall - Collar City - 7"

It's amazing what Shield Recordings has accomplished ever since their first release (which was an ep from my old band Heartfelt). Not only have they managed to release some of the best more recent records by Dutch bands as The Real Danger, Said and Done and Smash The Statues, they also worked with bands from Slovenia (In-Sane), Sweden (Atlas Losing Grip) and the United States (The Fake Boys).

Having grown so much these past 5 years doesn't seem to slow labelowners Gert and Fieke down. Besides putting together an European tour for The Fake Boys in October (they still need help on some dates), releases for Antillectual and After The Fall are already scheduled as well.

New York's After The Fall is the latest addition on the Shield roster. The band already gained quite some popularity with their 'Fort Orange'lp. This October a new full length entitled 'Eradication' will be released.

To tease fans of aggressive punkrock a bit Shield Recordings recently put out the 'Collar City' 7" containing three of the fastest and most furious punkrock songs I've heard in quite some time.

Titletrack 'Collar City' is all about working hard to get your band going just to give it all up after a while to lead a normal life.

'Coaster' seems to be all about NoFX not being the band they used to be (just check the lyrics: I was that kid who used to buy your records on the day that they came out. And I went to every show I could. I used to care but things have changed. I'm not the only one who feels this way, this shit is played out and really fucking lame. I still remember the first time hearing The Decline. I even placed some bids and won your first seveninch, the pmrc can suck on this (but I sold it). I just want to let you know that I'm giving up , and it's about time you do the same.)

The last song 'Comatose' is a personal song about expectations and love.

As said earlier this 7" is aggressive and hard. Don Fury did a good job getting an in your face sound for this band that soundwise kind be described as Propaghandi without the trashmetal, or a less melodic version of New Mexican Disaster Squad.

As a teaser for the upcoming full length 'Collar City' sure does its job. I for one am really curious how the new record, recorded by Jay Maas and featuring guest vocals from that guy from Make Do And Mend, will sound.

Propagandhi:Supporting Caste interview

To be honest I admire Propagandhi more for their lyrics and the way they do things, than for their music. Still when the opportunity did arise to interview them on their new album 'Supporting Caste' I didn't hesitate. Bassman Todd Kowalski was kind enough to answer my not that great questions.



Why leave Fat and decide upon Smallman? Was it time for something different? So far how do things work out on a ‘smaller’ label well at least from a European perspective?
Yeah, we wanted to do something different. We are friends with everyone at Smallman and they are from our hometown of Winnipeg so we thought it would be a good idea. In Europe the record is on Hassle and Hotel Van Cleef which is run, in part, by our Friend Marcus who we've known for years and years. He's a great guy! It all seems to be working out well. Why ship our records all the way across the world and have them sold as imports? Now they are domestic releases. Our friend in china might even be releasing the cd.

As punkrock veterans do you keep up with new bands and if so which new and old bands do you like and are an inspiration?
I always keep up with a lot of new bands. I really love a lot of metal bands like Cynic, Immolation, Necrophagist, and Krisiun, I like some new punk bands but don't listen to them too much at home simply because some metal bands are scorching the earth right now! I Love old bands like Born Against, Manliftingbanner, Sticks and Stones, MDC, Voivod, Razor, Crucifucks, man I could list a million of them! I'm still into it all 100%.

First you released the news you would stop with the G7 label, now the new record is partly released by it. What happened? Why did you come back on that decision?
We flow like the mighty river! We never know which way it will turn. We just figured it would be another good G7 release. Why not? Ha ha.

Can you tell me where the song Supporting Caste is about. And if it is about the Indian caste system do you really think a song by a Canadian band will change anything about that?
The song is not specifically about the caste system in India although it includes that as well. there are tonnes of unwritten caste systems in every country and between many types of people. The song is really about all the people who through history will never have their story told or acknowledged even though they did profound or powerful things, or perhaps suffered immensely for Kings, generals, saviors, etc.. to have their place of esteem and glory in the history books. the supporting caste is the majority of people working hard and keeping the world afloat.

How do you avoid simply sloganeering punk rock criticism and also do something about the topics you discuss in your songs?
We avoid sloganeering by playing and writing from the heart. We just say what's truly on our minds. We don't try to be part of some made up "revolution" or something. We're just writing songs about our day to day experiences and things that move us the same as someone writing love songs or something. Our music is fast and heavy, when I hear these sounds it does not move me to write love lyrics in the typical sense. It is truly an outlet for our frustrations in the world. I know every metal band has said that since the dawn of time, but it's true. it's hard to live in and accept a world that seems so at odd with what we believe to be fair and just.


You’ve toured the US with Paint It Black recently. How was it to share the stage with a band that everyone sees as the best thing in hardcore since a while. How did the tour came about and did you guys have late night discussion with Dr.Dan?
We live in Canada and don't read music magazines or blogs so I was unaware that they were thought of like that by the masses before we went on tour. I can see why they are so highly regarded. They are a great band and great guys. Dan has great and thoughtful lyrics and always has something to say. I was trying not to talk to much on tour to save my voice but I did talk to Dan and he's a very, very nice and good guy. the tour came about by someone suggesting some bands. We checked them out and liked Paint It Black and thought they'd be good to have along. It was a good choice. I have only good things to say about them.

What excatlty has Bill Stevenson done in the studio that made you sound better than on previous records?
I think a lot of people don't know that Jason Livermore at the Blasting Room is the guy who also does a lot of tracking and almost all the mixing so he should get a lot of the credit. They are very meticulous with the playing and tuning down there . they work very very hard to make sure everything is on the right track. We were in there for hours. Then they work very, very hard on the mixing process. Jason was seriously in there for hours and hours, and hours at a time with no breaks. I couldn't believe it. I've never seen someone work so hard on a record in my whole life. He deserves a shitload of credit for his efforts.