In Effect #2 1988. Walter and Arthur of Gorilla Biscuits when asked if they feel they lost fans due to being a straight edge band:

Walter: “I think we probably piss a lot of people off because were straight edge and we do lose a lot of fans”.

Arthur: “We’re promoting something that we believe in but so does everybody. We don’t get down on Raw Deal because they promote anger and hatred and those are emotions we all feel but we feel a certain way too. It seems like it’s a trend to get down on straight edge."

Walter: “I feel that our job as a band is to put out good energy and to get people psyched about life, even as cheesy as it sounds. We’re not trying to make the world straight edge and contrary to what people might think we are not elitest and were definitely not homosexuals.”

...and in the same interview Walter responds to what happened with Gorilla Biscuits’ rumored name change to Courage To Care:

“It was just an idea that didn’t happen. I didn’t think it was too close to what we were trying to get across message wise. I think it’s silly if people are just going to judge us by a name.”

In Effect #12 1999. Mikey Hood of Hoods on their tour vehicle:

“We used the same broke ass JC penny van. It was $800. His name is Herbie. He is a piece of shit. It leaks and breaks down every two hours. This tour we had a blowout at 90mph. I was in the back sleeping and all of a sudden the whole van was on it’s side. Earlier before the blow out I had pissed in a Gatorade bottle. When the blowout happened the lid flew off and piss went everywhere. Everyone thought it was water…until now.”

In Effect #10 1997. Dean, Kent and Scott of No Redeeming Social Value on some of the more funny moments with the band:

Dean: “For sure my favorite is when we played this place called The Underworld. It was one of our first real hardcore shows since we used to play all these bad metal shows. I drank a lot of brew and threw up on the stage. I was spewing like a fire hydrant and Kent slipped in it, falls on the ground and doesn’t realize it so he’s rolling in the puke on the floor. Vinny is disgusted with the smell and everything and stops playing and tries to get off the stage and slipped. As he was falling he tried to reach on to a monitor that was on the ceiling and fell on his ass. It was something right out of the Three Stooges.”

Kent: “Then we had to drive home naked.”

Scott: “It was these two guys driving home naked in the front seat and me and my girlfriend in the back seat. The whole car smelled like puke and it was so fucking nasty!”

In Effect #2 1988. Lou Koller of Sick Of It All on what really happened with a riot at one of their shows at Streets in New Rochelle:

“From what I saw our roadie got into a fight with these drunken hick skinhead guys called The New Breed and he beat him one on one and another guy jumped in and all these other fights broke out for no reason. The thing that’s fucked up is that my brother Pete was inside the whole time and when he came out a cop started with him for no reason. The cop swung his night stick at him and since my brother blocked it they arrested him for assaulting an officer. We’re already fighting it and the CBGB Benefit show for him was to help pay for the lawyers fee.”

In Effect #8 1995. Mike Dijan of Crown Of Thornz on touring with Madball for a month while sharing the same tour bus:

“”Everybody had bunks and me and Hoya slept on this U shaped couch. I had one side and he had the other. The laundry was over the couch and I woke up a bunch of times with smelly, disgusting clothes all over me. The bus was big so if you got sick of somebody you just went to the front of the bus to hang out. If you got sick of somebody up front you’d go to the back. We had little arguments over the music here and there but no fights or anything. Stigma wanted to listen to Johnny Cash tapes and Ezec and Madball kept playing this Biggie Smalls tape. When we first got over to Europe we had this fresh Winnebago which was packed with food and everything. It was stocked with all this homemade wine. We had a 22 hour drive right off the bat from Germany to France where our first show was supposed to be. We busted open this cabinet and we found all this wine which we later found out was supposed to be for Punishable Act. Their record company paid for all the wine and we drank it. The driver knew but didn’t care and we had him stop off in Paris on the way to the show. We got blasted on wine and were hanging out underneath the Eifel tower.”

In Effect #10 1997. Jeff Perlin of Breakdown on shady show promoters and some of the methods they had to use to get paid at a show:

…”If someone says that they aren’t gonna pay us, they usually end up passing us the money a minute or two later. That’s one of the best parts of the show for us. Collecting what little money we get. One guy (who will remain nameless) tried to tell us he couldn’t pay us when the place was packed and he ended up getting body slammed on the sidewalk. So he gave us the money we knew he had and drove off in an ambulance. That was fun. Another guy was supposed to give us like two hundred dollars and tried to give us twenty. When he reached into his pocket to give us the last twenty dollars he had, a wad of cash fell out onto the floor so we ended up getting more than we expected that time. Another guy in Boston tried to pay us with a personal check until Mike (guitar) threw him into a wall. We then took a walk to the nearest ATM. Another guy cried broke when the place was packed so we just emptied his pockets and that took care of that. Joe (old drummer) got hog tied and locked up when we played City Gardens and they tried not to pay us because we didn’t have a rider. The cops showed up because we were riffing with the bouncers and grabbed Joe the minute they saw him. But he was out a couple of hours later. One time we were supposed to play a show at the Channel in Boston and our drummer forgot his cymbals and none of the pussies in the other bands would lend us theirs. So I said fuck this, we are getting paid anyway. We had driven all the way there in the snow and we were going to get paid. So we had this guy who was supposed to be managing us at the time and I told him to get the money. He kept telling me to wait, he’d take care of it. Basically he wimped out so I asked for a description of the guy who was running the show. He gave me a basic description and I grabbed the first guy I thought could be him. I grabbed him by the throat and told him to pay up. The guy started shaking like a leaf and I thought he was going to cry. He ended up being the drummer for another band we were supposed to play with and he was just shitting himself and trying to tell me who the guy I needed to talk to was. Anyway, I finally found the guy and we got paid. Then we are driving home from this fiasco in a full on blizzard and the van breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Dijan and Larry’s brother get out to find help and we sit around in the van watching a 2 inch TV we rigged up freezing our asses off for like an hour or two. Next thing you know they are running full speed back to the van. Mike had magically “found” the exact part we needed to get the van running in someone’s driveway. I think he ripped someone’s entire electrical system out.”

In Effect #12 1999. Pete Tabbot of Vision on what an average band rehearsal is like:

“We rehearse in Dave’s basement anywhere from once to four times a week, usually twice on average. A typical practice goes something like this: we play through the set once, Pete yells at Paul about something, Paul shakes his head in disgust at Pete, Dave tells everyone to shut up, Matt sits at his drum set with his head in his hands and then yells at everyone, Todd starts a Bad Brains jam, we play some Sabbath, we write a new song, and everyone goes home happy. That’s only a SLIGHT exaggeration, but not far from the truth. But in a nutshell, we play, write, talk (or yell on any given night) but it’s always somehow productive.”

In Effect #11 1997. Justin and Steve of Indecision on a question that started off about people labeling the band straight edge when they clearly did not want to be known as a straight edge band:

Justin: “Half of the bands that we know that are so called straight edge aren’t. I don’t want to drag names through the mud sort of speak but that’s how it is. They dance around the issue like “oh, we’re addiction free” or “oh, we’re all drug free.”

Steve: “It comes down to people wanting everyone to like their band and people know if they say that their band is a straight edge band, even if they fucking suck, that there are people that will automatically like them just for that.”

Justin: “With the straight edge thing you get an automatic name. Like Ten Yard Fight. They suck, they’re straight edge, and everyone loves them, ok. And then you have the whole Krishna thing with Equal Vision Records. They are like “OK, the Krishna thing is out, to be straight edge is in. Let me make some fucking straight edge Star Wars t-shirts. It’s just fucking exploitation. It’s like Hands Tied, “We fucking suck, we’re straight edge, we’re good.” When Equal Vision Records started out they were supposed to be an all Krishna label and now it’s turning into a straight edge hardcore label just because Krishna isn’t really happening anymore. Even when it was Krishna they were all out capitalizing off of Krishna stuff. Krishna is all about in-materialism and they are out selling shirts that fucking say “Krishna Rocks.” What the fuck are they doing? Fuck ‘em.”

In Effect #8 1995. Cris of Oakland’s Powerhouse on their week long tour with Madball:

“We played the only four shows in the state with them. Best time I had in a long time. They are not only one of the best bands around right now in my opinion but they are really good people too. From the first night we played with them they backed us up. Down in Southern California we had some schism with white power kids and being as three Powerhouse members are Mexican we had a need to talk mad shit on them. So we did and Madball backed us up 100% when confrontation came up. We played in LA on the last night and there were probably 20-30 white power kids. Anyway these guys were stiff arming people in the pit and everybody was pissed. After Madball had played three songs Freddy smashed one  of them in the face with a mic stand. Jay our drummer jumped in the pit with a cymbal and started smashing fools. That was the end of that show as you might have guessed. I feel bad for all the people who payed good money to see a show and then have it get fucked up like that.”

In Effect #4 1994. AJ Novello of Leeway on looking back to having done their first two albums with Profile Records and if he felt it was a mistake:

“It’s easy to say with 20/20 hindsight what was the wrong move. At the time there weren’t many labels that wanted to sign us. We were also very young, about 18 years old. We were never on a label before and we were totally wet behind the ears. So there are a lot of reasons why we justified our decision. I think looking back now it was the worst move anyone could ever make. Profile just totally dropped the ball. Chris Williamson wasn’t much of a help either even though he did produce the first two records and they do sound ok for today’s standards. I think both him and Profile kind of equal zero.”

...and on what countries in Europe are the better ones to play:

“Basically the industrial nations in Western Europe like Germany and Holland are the best places. Also Italy, France and Belgium are good. Then you start getting into like Sweden and Denmark and it starts to get a little iffy. You can play 3 weeks in Germany alone. Berlin is like Boston or NY to me. They have a great scene and one of the best shows we ever did was in Berlin. It was definitely one of our top 10 shows. Berlin’s got it going on.”

In Effect #12 1999. Ezec of Skarhead when asked about their then upcoming record on Victory Records considering that the band had a beef with them prior:

(Laughing) “If you told me that a year ago I probably wouldn’t have known what Victory was! I don’t know how the deal came about, it just fell into our laps. Our management was talking with Tony Victory. They wanted us and had heard a lot about us and stuff like that. They’ve been really good to us. We went on tour twice since we hooked up with them and we are going again. Later this month we have a week of shows set up with the Misfits and Gwar. They gave us tour support twice and we didn’t even give them a demo or anything. Before that the only time I actually talked to Tony from Victory was when I threatened that band Integrity and One Life Crew. I told them that I was going to kill everyone on Victory.”

...and on what Skarhead’s image is on stage:

“Just like hoods! A crazy bunch of fucks.”

In Effect #5 1995. Mark Neuman of Sheer Terror on how the band functions with their singer Paul living in Boston at the time:

“When we write new songs we make tapes and mail them to him and he just adds the lyrics. When he comes down to NY we work on the arrangements and just get it together. He comes down every two weeks or so. Sometimes less and definitely not more. The less I see of him the better. He lives up there because he hates NY and everyone here.”

...and in the same interview why the band thanked Zoran Busic on their “Thanks Fer Nuthin” CD “for being the biggest prick we ever had the displeasure of knowing.”

"He is the guy who did Maze Records. Maze put out the first Biohazard record. We had a bad experience with him where he fucked us majorly. We did a record for him and he never put it out. It was just one false promise after another. Basically we were like fuck this guy. So we went back to Bill (Bill Wilson of Blackout Records) because he is like the only guy who has always been there for us. We told him that this guy wasn’t going to put out our record so why don’t we re-record some of the songs and put it out on Blackout. Bill liked the idea and we did it. Then we turn around and this guy sued us and Bill. That’s basically why we hate him. I think that’s reason enough. Plus there is a lot of other shit too but I don’t want to get into that. It came down to a point where we were just going to kick his ass. He lives up in Canada now and he’s selling it because he legally can.”

In Effect #11 1997. Flyer king Gary Gilmore when asked to introduce himself:

“Gary Gilmore, no relation to the murderer but that would have been cool. I’d have more reason for my violent flyers then. I’m 27 years of age.”

...and on what got him into making flyers for hardcore shows in the first place:

“What got me into making the flyers is that nobody else does it anymore with good artwork on them. I mean every now and then there is but only if it’s a big show. What I’m trying to do is build up the smaller bands because I don’t like the idea of “big” hardcore bands. I thought we were all supposed to be in the same scene. I always make sure my flyers stand out so people take notice so they become “big” even with bands that aren’t.”

In Effect #3 1989. Mark Ryan of Supertouch on how the first Supertouch and Death Before Dishonor (pre-Supertouch) shows went:

“The first new Supertouch show was at The Anthrax with Bold, Sick Of It All, and Breakdown. It was great, the crowd really got into us. I threw my voice out early because I wasn’t comfortable on stage singing so I was just like screaming the vocals. The first DBD show was with C.O.C. when they first started. It was on Avenue C and we also played with The Mob that day. Some girl got stabbed and the show ended up getting stopped. We did an Artificial Peace cover that day. It was something like a year or a year and a half before C.O.C’s “Eye For An Eye” came out.”

...and when asked if he was still a fan of the NYC hardcore scene at the time:

“Yeah, I still like the scene but there are also a lot of things I don’t like, like racist skinheads. These kids start off as metal heads and when they get into hardcore they become racist skins. Not one of these kids can even say they were into hardcore for a long time. They are just posers who get into hardcore and then become racist.”

In Effect #10 1997. Roger Miret of Agnostic Front on what made the band change their minds for a reunion after having been broken up for the previous four years:

“It was really a weird thing. There was a Madball show at The Wetlands and Kabula said let’s go up and play a few songs. I hadn’t played with Kabula in about eight or ten years. So I went up there with him and Vinnie and it felt good. We talked a few days later about possibly doing a single on our own and one thing led to another. Basically what’s going on now is let’s play a few shows and see what’s going on.”

...and on what the band members had been doing with themselves since the band broke up a few years earlier:

“I’m a mechanic and I get paid pretty well. I work on motorcycles. I really like doing it but I’m a little bored with it right now. I really want to do music again. Kabula is a heavy machines operator and he operates these big cranes and tractors. He’s got like a $75,000 a year job. That’s a lot. He wants to do this just as bad as I do. Jimmy is…I don’t know what he does. He’s a landscaper but he’s out of a job right now because things slow down in the winter. Vinny has been doing what he’s been doing forever…Nothing! He attempted to go to work once, he was bored and he left. That’s it. That’s the story of his life. It’s been that way ever since I’ve been in the band.”

In Effect #9 1996. Before the release of their first album Toby Morse of H2O on the direction of the band and where he would like to see H2O go in the future:

“I want to be like Sick Of It All or The Bosstones. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones aren’t on MTV or the radio but they’re fucking huge and every show is sold out for them. Same thing with Sick Of It All. I want to have longevity. I’d much rather be known for who we are and our live show. I don’t want to have to have the TV and radio make ourselves. If someday we earn our way and we get offered to be on MTV because people liked us for years, and want to see us there, then that’s great. I don’t want to come off like POW! All of a sudden you’re there and you haven’t played any shows, you haven’t toured in a van, you haven’t done the hardcore thing and expect everything to be given to you.”

In Effect #2 1988. Steve, Patrick and Lars of Uppercut when asked how it was playing at Streets in New Rochelle since nobody ever had anything good to say about that place:

Steve: “It sucks.”

Patrick: “We played there with New Breed and Savage Choir.”

Lars: “We were supposed to play with Breakdown but they cancelled at the last minute because they weren’t offered enough money.”

Steve: “How hardcore is that?”

...and when asked what they would be putting out next:

Lars: “We are working on a 7” for our friends label. Our friend Bill Wilson has started Crossfire Records and we are going to record it sometime during the winter. So look for it in the future.”

In Effect #9 1996. John Joseph and AJ Novello of Both Worlds on their upcoming touring plans:

AJ: “We just want to do weekend shows for now and just try to pay the rent. We definitely want to go over to Europe. There seems to be an endless supply of bands making the rounds over there and if people want to hear us then it’s all good then.

John: “I remember when we (Cro-Mags) were the first fucking band to ever go to fucking Europe. Now it’s like every fucking band is going over there.”

AJ: “They seem to appreciate more underground stuff in Europe and I think from a business aspect you can’t afford to tour the states sometimes. I haven’t done a tour of the US in six or seven years now. There’s all these gaps in the Midwest that can suck you dry money wise. Europe gives you the opportunity to go tour which is a good thing unless you want to work in a supermarket.”

...after releasing their debut 4 song EP there weren’t any other publicly known songs so I asked them how they planned on filling up a full live set:

AJ: “A lot of talking.”

John:”I have Richard Simmons coming up on stage and were going to do a workout session for all the overweight hardcore people. What else? I got a girl coming up that can spit fire out of her vagina. I don’t know, we’ll figure it out.”

AJ: “We got the four songs from the EP plus we have a whole other set of songs so we’ll be fine. We have close to ten songs right now.”

John: (Jokingly) “We’re going to do Biohazard covers.”

In Effect #12 1999. Andy West of Kill Your Idols on touring advice for younger bands:

“Honestly, hit the smaller towns and cities. You can’t rule out the bigger ones but plan on having your better shows in these little towns that you have never heard of. The ones that are the tiniest little dot on the map. Oregon is a perfect example. We played Portland and there were 15 kids. We played Bend and there were 200 kids.”

...and in the same interview how they came up with the name Kill Your Idols:

“It means not to put other people above you. We got that because things in hardcore were really weird, they still are. The bands that played hardcore started to get bigger and bigger and that’s just not something that we really believe in. You don’t see us in some backstage area, it’s not like we play places that are that big, it’s just that we don’t separate ourselves. We’re just normal hardcore kids and we happen to have a band also. We watch other bands that we play with. If we are not playing we go to other shows and stuff like that. It’s also a song by an old band called Situated Chaos and that’s what originally put it in our heads. The singer introduced me and Gary. Plus me and Gary were probably the only Situated Chaos fans in the whole city.”