IE: Hey Tommy, how did the BNB show this past May come about for the band?

Tommy: Guy, our bass player owns a music store and he is in contact with a lot of the guys from Madball and the guys that promote the BNB and they got together and Guy asked if we could play and they said yeah or something like that. I guess we had some hand in approaching them because Guy is friendly with those guys.

IE: What was the lineup like for that show and what versions of Ludichrist were the members from?

Tommy: It was me, Tommy Christ on vocals. I was on both Ludichrist records, Paul Nieder on guitar, he was on the “Powertrip” album, Dave Miranda on drums, he also played on “Powertrip”, Guy Brogna on bass, he toured a lot with Ludichrist in the past but never recorded with the band and Pete Testa who was totally new. He was friends with some of the other guys and we found him back when we did some reunion shows in 2007 and every once in a while we will play a show and Pete has always been with us since then.

IE: Was it hard getting everyone back on track and “re-learning” the old tunes? How often was the band practicing leading up to the BNB Bowl?

Tommy: We practiced like once a week I guess for about 6 weeks leading up to that show. When we did our reunion show in 2007 we did full sets of Ludichrist and Scatterbrain and we rehearsed for a long time, at least 6 months leading up to that. Maybe about 2 or 3 years ago we did a show with Agnostic Front and that took a lot less rehearsing and like a year after that we played a few more shows and that took less so now everything is kind of back in our heads and its pretty easy to get going with things again especially if its songs we played a lot live back in the day because they seem to be burned into your head. If you pick out a song that we didn’t play out live much that’s a bit harder to get going in the beginning.

IE: Considering the band has not had a new release in ages and has not played out regularly in years what kind of response were you expecting that day? Do you feel that you may have reached some younger fans that may not have been around during the bands heyday?

Tommy: I didn’t know what to expect, I just expected that it would be a pretty cool show and it was. There was definitely a bunch of familiar faces up front, you know, the old guys that knew all the lyrics to our songs but it seemed that on the other side of the mosh pit there were a lot of younger people that were into what we were doing and when I was walking around in the crowd after the show a lot of people came up to me, younger people as well, so they were into it. I don’t know what I was expecting to be honest but it was pretty cool. It turned out to be a good day.

IE: When you look back to each Ludichrist release including the demo you can hear the band’s sound evolve and change. Can you take us through how these changes happened in your opinion?

Tommy: Two things happened. First off we had so many lineup changes… so when people came and went they brought their backgrounds and influences and what they wanted to do with them. Second… the longer you do something the more you want to try new things… at least that’s how it worked out for us. We didn’t want to keep writing the same songs over and over again. We wanted to try new things. It becomes obvious because you can see and hear that from the demo, through “Immaculate Deception”, and through “Powertrip” and from there it was Scatterbrain, it was really a lot of the same guys and we went into something just completely different. When the band first started out Alan Mark had started the band and wrote some of the early songs and they were influenced by straight up hardcore. When I joined the band I was listening to stuff like the Dead Kennedy’s, Discharge and stuff like that. Chuck the bass player was into DRI, and some of the early crossover things as well as rap. Then on the second album you had Dave Miranda who was influenced by stuff like Jethro Tull, Dixie Dregs and all this progressive rock and some of the other guys were into things like the Allman Brothers and we eventually brought in all these different styles and the music kind of changed or evolved I guess over the years. 

IE: Do you remember how did the name Ludichrist came to be?

Tommy: Al Batross and Mark started the band and went to Catholic school together and they kind of had this pent up anger against organized religion and things like that. They had the name before they even had a full band. It was Al, Mark, then they found Chuck and me right after that and we started the band so the name was already in place.

IE: What were some of the more memorable Ludichrist shows from back in the day?

Tommy: I can’t remember any specific shows but shows that were always good in general for us was when we played The Sundance on Long Island. It was kind of our home base, our home town, those shows were always great. The Anthrax in Connecticut was like our home away from home. Every time we played there the shows were great, the crowds were great. We did a European tour where we played with this band Erosion from Germany, those guys were cool and we had a lot of fun, played a lot of shows, mostly in Germany and Italy but we did play other places in Europe as well. We played a show here and there with Nuclear Assault and we always had fun with those guys. Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore were all good but I could be mixing up Scatterbrain shows with Ludichrist ones in my head but again, nothing really too specific but just lots of cool shows from back then.

IE: What was the bands experience like with Combat Records? There always seemed to be some kind of debate within the hardcore scene back then when bands didn’t sign with smaller labels or put out their own records.

Tommy: It was generally good. Back then people were signing the better bands or the more popular bands either to the label that the Cro-Mags went to (Profile Records) or Combat. Early on it was a little bit of a struggle to get money for touring and publicity and things like that but overall it was fine. I think the way we looked at it was we could put out our own record and struggle to get people to hear it or find out about it or go with these other guys that can get it in a lot of places and that’s what we chose to do. 

IE: Do you still keep in touch with ex-members of the band and what are some of the guys you are playing with these days doing besides Ludichrist?

Tommy: Let me start from the beginning because there were so many people…Al Batross played in some other bands, I am not sure what he is doing now, I am sure you can find his website or Wikipedia page, I kind of lost contact with him right when he left the band…same thing with Mark the original guitar player, he left music completely I think when he left Ludichrist. Joe Butcher moved to Texas and he is involved with music in Texas. When we first tried to arrange things for our reunion show in 2007 I talked to Joe a little bit but we couldn’t make things work with him living down there. I haven’t talked to him since 2007 so I don’t know exactly what he is up to these days. Glen Cummings is involved in art and design. He went on after Ludichrist and Scatterbrain to some other bands in Nashville for a while and I think he has gotten out of music. I think he owns his own kind of architectural art design company… I am not sure exactly what they do, apparently he is very good at it. I think he was a guest lecturer at Yale. We stay in touch by email although I haven’t seen him in quite some time. From the second album Mike Walters the bass player, I don’t know what happened to him, I think he played a little bit with Sheer Terror for a little while. Dave Miranda the drummer on “Powertrip” is still playing with us now. He is still involved with some other musical projects including Magic Elf who are kind of a progressive rock band who are actually really good. Guy Brogna who toured with Ludichrist a lot but never recorded with Ludichrist but was on all the Scatterbrain stuff owns a music store called All Music in Plainview on Long Island. Paul Nieder.. guitar player on “Powertrip” is still in the band whenever we play. He owns some auto body shops and that’s what he keeps busy with as well. Pete Testa is our new guitar player…he has been part of the Long Island scene for a long time and has played in a bunch of cover bands. As for personal stuff most of us are busy with our families… either married, or married and divorced, divorced and remarried… and we all have kids and that’s a big important part of our lives and I think I speak for everyone when I say that. It’s not just about music when you get to be this age, it’s about other responsibilities as well.