IE: For someone just hearing about you here for the first time can you tell us who is in the band and what kind of style does Concrete Cross play? I read a review that compared you guys to older C.O.C. and The Abused... would you agree with those comparisons?

Artie: Concrete Cross is me (Artie) yelling, plus Tom on guitar, plus Anthony a.k.a. Tone on drums, plus Scott on bass. We are a straight up hardcore band with a lot of old crossover thrash creeping in around the edges. The C.O.C. comparison is pretty accurate – we used to cover “Mad World” from “Animosity” when we were first playing shows. We have also covered Lifesblood and Motorhead, so I guess imagine all of that stuff swirling around in a toilet and that’s us.

IE: When I found out that the whole band is from NY except for you who is living in Chicago the first thing that came to mind is that these guys probably never play out live. Is this actually the case and how have you been working things out in regards to playing shows and writing songs up to this point in the band's history?

Artie: It’s tough doing a band long distance, that’s for sure. We get together every couple of months to play a weekend of shows, usually around NY and the northeastern US. We played a few shows in Los Angeles last summer with the Neighborhood Brats too. It’s definitely not as easy as with most bands who can get together every week and write songs and practice. It takes a lot of planning ahead to get anything done. Plus, most of the band is at the age where careers, families, and stuff like that is a real factor. So it can be frustrating but so far we are making it work.

IE: Do you feel if you still lived in NY that this band would be further along in regards to overall accomplishments (number of shows played, number of releases etc) and with this group is getting popular something your even striving for? From an outsiders view it seems as if you guys may be happy to just have a record out and get to play some weekend shows here and there.

Artie: Yeah, you basically nailed it. We don’t really give a shit about being popular – we are all on the same page that this band is strictly a creative outlet and a way to connect to the music we love. If I still lived in NY, we would definitely be playing a lot more shows and probably have another record or two out by now. But that’s OK – for three of us at least, the need for “scene status” dissipated years ago. As for Tone, who is a lot younger, he earns plenty of cred playing in Sheer Terror.

But then again, popularity is a funny thing. I won’t deny that it’s frustrating to know that we are one solid fucking band, and other bands that aren’t very good at all still get a lot more recognition just by virtue of playing every weekend and making the right friends and so on. It can be easy to lapse into resentment, like “fuck those guys, they suck, they are just a ripoff of <insert band here.> Sometimes I find myself thinking that way even now. But you know…when has that weird passive-aggressive competition not been lurking around in NYHC or any other music scene? Playing music becomes a lot more fun if you can leave that bullshit behind.

IE: I have noticed that when the band does play it is usually cramming 3 shows into a weekend and you guys have had a few basement and house shows mixed in there as well. You’re not always playing the conventional show at the local bar. Can you talk a little about your past weekends where you had shows booked and how easy or chaotic things have been to get your shows in.

Artie: We do shows in weekend blocks because if I am gonna fly into NY from Chicago, I want to maximize my time as much as possible. The process is usually: fly in on a Thursday to practice, show on Friday, show or two on Saturday, possible show Sunday, fly home Sunday night or Monday AM. I don’t even have to miss work because my company has an office in NY and I can work from there when I need to. Plus I travel a lot for work, so I bank a lot of airline miles, which pay for most of my airfare for Concrete Cross stuff. So we are really lucky and have a convenient system in place as long as we plan ahead.

We have played a lot of cool spaces over the years: basements, art galleries, record stores, VFW halls, wherever. Our favorite place to play is probably Acheron in Brooklyn. The sound is great, its small, and the bartenders don’t make small talk. Death By Audio was a cool spot, too – unfortunately it will probably be transformed into condos or a Starbucks by the time this interview comes out. Williamsburg is basically just one massive, sprawling American Apparel store at this point. But that’s another discussion.

The Punk Island Festival (Staten Island) thing was another good one. So many mixed up styles of music and people, all getting into everything at the same time. Squatter punks moshing to hip hop influenced grindcore… so nuts. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Except for the fact that I am pale as fuck, and we played in bright afternoon sunlight, which made me look like some kind of disgusting sweaty ghost of an uncooked turkey flapping around on the asphalt, that was probably one of my favorite shows I have ever played. I usually hate “fests” too; they are almost always boring marathons with like one or two good bands sandwiched between a bunch of reunion/revival acts. But Punk Island was the real deal.

I almost always prefer small shows. Hardcore and punk is best when it’s in your face with all that energy and weirdness balled up into a little room, whether it be a basement or a tiny bar or a fucking donut shop. I do prefer bars only because I like to drink, but in any case I will take a basement show over some giant club with barricades and hired goons and all that shit. That stuff might be necessary if you have thousands of kids coming to see you, but for Concrete Cross it would be absurd to go out on a 50-foot high stage and pretend to be a rock band. We are dirtbags and so we stick to dirtbag places.

IE: Have you guys ever (or considered) flying everyone over to Chicago and basically doing the weekend thing that you guys have done but in reverse?

Artie: That’s been something we have been meaning to do, and we almost did it this summer but at the last minute it didn’t work out. Hopefully in Spring of 2015 we can do that. I would say maybe the winter but travel is too easily fucked up by weather in the Midwest so we could book everything and have it all fucked up by one freak snowstorm or polar vortex or whatever the fuck is in store for us this year. Much safer to plan for after the ice has melted here.

IE: You were telling me that when you decided to move to Chicago that you thought the band would probably just break up but you guys gave the long distance thing a shot and so far things have held together pretty well. How close were you guys to just calling it a day or maybe even getting someone else to sing?

Artie: Tone never answered this one, so, I don’t know how close they were – they never said anything to me about replacing me. What have you heard?!?

In all seriousness, I was the one who felt bad and figured it was better for me to bow out than expect them to conduct a band between time zones. But it wasn’t really discussed; the vibe was “ok, we’re doing this now.”

I guess if they did decide to get a different singer my one request is that they would replace me with Tom Sheehan!

IE: Why did you move to Chicago and can you give us some pros and cons to living there in comparison to your old Long Island stomping grounds?

Artie: Well I lived in L.I. for mostly my whole life until 1997 when I moved to Brooklyn. So I have lived in both the suburban and the urban NY. The main “pro” to living in NY, for me, is that it’s where most of my best friends live. After that, the pros got fewer and fewer as I got older.

Long Island is basically a giant chunk of Oklahoma dropped next to the east coast and injected with some kind of awful New Jersey virus. The city is expensive, it’s crowded, its dirty, and its gradually being overrun with transient hipsters and yuppies from all over the world who are coming there to have some kind of authentic cultural “experience” and move on. Between NYU, “Girls,” and the last four mayors, NYC is basically cannibalizing itself to make room for rich dicks. It’s still home to me in a lot of ways but I wasn’t willing to put up with the bullshit anymore. Plus I wanted to live in a place I could afford and where I didn’t need a roommate at 40 years old.

So around 2005 or so I knew I wanted to get out. Actually that was kind of the theme of most of the lyrics to my last band Celebrity Murders (note: I’m not trying to plug a previous band that barely anyone remembers.) Every song I wrote for that band was basically like “I can’t take this place.” In fact, some of the later Indecision lyrics had that theme too.

Fast forward to 2010 when I ended a long term relationship and took a job in Chicago because, frankly, it was as good as any other city. But since then I have come to love Chicago – it’s not perfect, and I live in a neighborhood where right now there is an ongoing gang war, which is not cool. But it’s affordable and I can actually save money here, and I met my wife here, the trains are cleaner here, and its generally quiet… except for gunshots sometimes. 

IE: Is anyone in the band splitting time with other bands at the moment?

Artie: Tone plays drums in Sheer Terror and sometimes he plays in a L.I. band called Polygon. Scott plays bass in a melodic kinda band called Greensleep that broke up a zillion years ago but are now messing around with some new stuff. Tom sometimes falls asleep at work and dreams he is in Iron Maiden.

Also I should mention that a million years ago Scott and I played together in a Born Against-y sounding band called Milhouse, and Tone and Tom played together in a really underrated fast hardcore band called Disnihil. People should look up that Disnihil shit, it really rips.

IE: How many new songs do you guys have written since the last record and when do you plan on starting work on a new record. When do you think it will be out?

Artie: I think we have like six new songs, mostly with lyrics. One song called “Bad Twin” is going to be on a compilation from Reaper Records coming out soon. We are aiming to write about five more songs and record before the end of the year and then crank out a new LP soon after. Most likely we will record it ourselves again in Tom’s living room or somewhere like that. We did it that way on the last record and it worked out great – no studio bullshit means we can take our time and play video games and hang out with no clock ticking away on us. We aren’t doing 7”s or splits or any of that stuff – we are just gonna bang out full lengths until we can’t stand each other anymore.

IE: That's about it. Anything else you wanted to add before we wrap this up?

Artie: New Sheer Terror LP is killer and the upcoming Neighborhood Brats LP is gonna be great as well. Raw Nerves, Oblivionation, and Suburban Scum are some of the best bands going right now and shouldn’t be overlooked. Thanks Chris!

http://concretecross.bandcamp.com

Jason Jamal Nakleh Photography: 

http://www.nakleh.com