END OF A YEAR & AFICIONADO Euro-Tour 2012
02.01.12 - Berlin, Germany - Comet Club
03.01.12 - Cologne, Germany - Sonic Ballroom
04.01.12 - Leipzig, Germany - Tba
05.01.12 - Wuerzburg, Germany - Cairo
06.01.12 - Dornbirn, Austria - Kulturcafé Schlachthaus
07.01.12 - Zwiesel, Germany - Jugendcafe
08.01.12 - Münster, Germany - Lorenz
09.01.12 - Antwerp, Belgium - JC Kavka
10.01.12 - Brighton, UK - Green Door Store
11.01.12 - Cardiff, UK - Undertone
12.01.12 - Cornwall, UK Live Bar
13.01.12 - London, UK - The Purple Turtle
14.01.12 - Glasgow, Scotland - 13 th Note
15.01.12 - Leeds, UK - The Well
16.01.12 - Larisa, Greece - Stage Club
17.01.12 - Volos, Greece - Warehouse Club
Hi Patrick, how are you and where are you in this moment?
Hi, AllSchools. I’m well. I’m currently in New York, preparing for New York Comic Con. I have two books debuting at the event and right now I’m a strange combination of elated and stressed out.
End Of A Year will tour europe in 2012 with Aficionado. Over here no one really knows this band. Do you have some reasons why this should change?
Aficionado gets our respect because they aren’t trying to fit into any genre. It’s too aggressive for indie rock people and has too many indie
leanings for punks. We relate to that. Also, some people really hate the band while others really love the band and that’s the sort of thing we like
to play alongside. Bands that get people’s passions up, one way or the other. My guess is that the band will be very popular soon, but probably outside of the scene Self Defense usually plays in.
I can imagine that you're may a bit bothered by this topic but on your last tour some dates got cancelled by some venues/promoters because of some reproaches that you (or EOAY) are sexist(s). While this tour, was any of the promoters/venues getting in touch with you to get a statement by yourself or was this just gossip-talk and without rhyme or reason?
I haven’t gotten any questions or comments from promoters regarding this upcoming tour. If I do, I’ll answer them. While I think the uproar about our last tour was misguided and largely the result of groupthink, I wouldn’t have a problem fielding questions from someone who had genuine concerns.
Did you ever get confronted with these things after this euro-tour?
No. I haven’t been confronted with any of those concerns from anyone in the United States. The people who are aware of it tend to think of it as an interesting study in cultural differences. Which I think it probably is. Even on tour in Europe, when we’d go to countries other than Germany, people truly couldn’t understand what the commotion was about. People in the UK seemed to find it perplexing.
After those allegations and these consequences I would never again travel that country or city again. Why do you do this again?
Because I grew up in the United States where differences of opinion are a fundamental part of how we interact. I don’t see anything wrong with a
healthy discourse. That’s what a lot of people who confronted us last time didn’t seem to understand. I’m not afraid of anyone’s opinion and they shouldn’t be afraid of mine. We can talk about whatever concerns someone or we can agree to disagree and they can choose to stay home. It’s OK to disagree. I think it veers off into fanaticism when a person will not allow another to have a differing opinion. That is never healthy and I have a low tolerance for censorship. We’re not going to Germany this time to prove a point or make a statement. It’s just a place where some of our friends live and they have kicker at the clubs. We like it. Plus, the history is engrossing in a way no place else can match. A few tours ago, we played Dresden and the people enthralled me. Speaking to those who lived there before Germany unified was a learning experience for me. Also, I spent a week in Berlin a few tours ago and I loved it. I think it’s one of the most interesting cities in the world. One of the television channels here did a ton of coverage on the anniversary of the fall of the wall and it motivated me to research it more fully. I’m now very interested to see some of the
things I’ve been reading about, or at least the plaques that commemorate them.
The reason i ask this is because, in a deathwish podcast you've posted, that End Of A Year is not a band, it is more like a collective. And as someone who say this, I think, the consequence out of that is, that this collective
isn't acting like a band anymore so maybe touring (especially after this sexist-allegations) is something that isn't the most important action of a collective. hope you know what i mean.
Yeah, there are 15 of us and there is a lot of variety within that group. We have three women members who find the allegations of sexism funny because they know me. We’ve got more than a few male members who don’t just consider themselves feminists, but actually work on behalf of that cause. Some of those guys will be coming on this tour and are going to be REALLY confused
by someone approaching them at a show calling them sexist. Regarding touring, you’re right. Touring is something we do to hold up our end of the bargain when dealing with labels. Labels put money into our records and we help promote those records by touring. Some of us love it; some of us would prefer to be home writing music. It’s not our primary aim in being a band.
your latest EP "I'm Going Through Some Shit" was realeased unter the name "Self Defence Music", which was always something like a additional name of EOAY. But why do you release this EP just under this name? Is this that kind
of a consequence of that collective thing?
We got sick of being a regular band. People think I’m exaggerating, but we’ve honestly written hundreds of songs. Writing songs like the ones on
Sincerely became so easy it wasn’t fun anymore. There wasn’t enough challenge to it. We wanted to play together, but we wanted to do it differently than we had up to that point. So we invited all the touring musicians or session musicians we’d worked with up to that point to be full-time members of a band that operated differently. They were all our friends anyway. The framework is simple: Anyone who plays on a recording gets writing credit for that recording. They can tour, not tour, play on certain releases and not others, write music independently of the group,
whatever. Being in a band is supposed to be fun and challenging. Right now, this format provides us both those elements. The name change reflects that. We’ll be releasing music under a variety of names over the next few years.
you recorded that EP in jamaica, which is not the most usual place to record punk/hardcore songs! why did you choose jamaica?
I don’t know how things are in the Europe at the moment, but in the US things are starting to become very stale. Everyone goes to the same studios with the same engineers or producers working on their records. We thought it would be fun to avoid that and when Jamaica presented itself as a viable recording option, we couldn’t say no. All these bands attempting to create
albums that will last forever don’t understand. There is no posterity on a planet destined to be consumed by the sun it orbits. Everything is
experience or it’s worthless. Jamaica seemed like an experience worth having.
