OK, this is a brand new interview with Zoli from Ignite, I just asked him a question
about the new record:

Ploedi:

Could you give us some quick information on the upcoming album?

Zoli:

Ok, it's on TVT records in LA. What happened was politics got involved and nobody
in Europe wanted to pick it up because it came out too early for them to push.
I guess record labels when they license an album like 6 months to get it ready,
to push it. And I guess it just came out to fast for them or something in that
effect. So right now TVT looks like they'll gonna set a label in Europe and that's
gonna be in a couple of months. And the problem that we have is that our album's
out now. So we gotta wait untill they set up a label and have the album ready
to promote for us to come back because I'm not gonna come back until the album's
out.

There is twelve songs. One is called who sold out now, it's about people calling
sell outs, this is the worst.

Simone:

I know this one, it was on a Fake CD you gave us last year!

Zoli:

No! "Who Sold Out Now"????

Simone:

I'm sure!

Ploedi:

I think so too! We have the CD with us so we can look it up!

Zoli:

It's not!

Simone:

I swear!

Zoli:

A beer! Half a Weizen beer, let's bet!

Simone and Ploedi:

Ok! *Big Laughter by everybody*

Zoli:

"Who sold out now" is the first one: 16 years old, living home. In front
of friends you're making fun of bands at shows because you call them sell outs
when your're 16 years old. You left the scene because your new girlfriend told
you so, now you're freaked out on Extacy at some rave or techno. There is another
song called "Run Run Run", it's about child abuse, it's about women
standing by their men as they are abusing their kids. We got a song called "Veteran"
which is about America of not taking care about American people. We don't have
socialized medicine, so when you're old in America and you don't have much money
you're not doing too good. I mean I had a stomach surgery and it cost me 70 000
Dollars so if you don't have health insurance you're fucked. It's about how we
don't take care about the elder people, we're not taking care of the Veterans
or the homeless in America. And there is another one called "In Moderation"
wich is not a Straight Edge song it's about if you drink, go easy, don't drink
four cases and kill yourself. If you do anything, I've learned in life the most
important thing in life is to do things in moderation. If you're gonna eat, don't
eat too much. Go easy, the quality of life lies in long term effects I think.
I drank and ate so much that I ruined my stomach, you know so I realized the hard
way: Slow down. There is another one called "Bullets included no thoughts
required": In America when you buy toys it says: Batteries included some
assembly required. It means you gotta kinda put it together. This song means that
bullets are included in the gun and there is no thought about what you gonna do
when you pull the trigger because we have so many problems with guns in America.
About people pulling guns at a fist fight. Pulling that trigger you don't know
where that bullet goes. If you gonna fight, put your fists up, one on one outside.
So you can both walk away from each other.

Then we've got "A Place Called Home": We have a hungarian Version as
a hidden track. It is written about leaving home. I have two families one lives
in Hungary and one in America, very far away and very expensive to fly back and
forth. And the one in Hungary is really old and everytime I leave it breaks my
heart, when I leave my grandma.

Please read the lyrics, we've got a new organisation we're pushing, it's called
Doctors without borders, they just one the Nobel Peace Price and they are from
France and they are a bunch of doctors that go to Cosovo, Sierra Leone.

Plödi:

Did you record "Sunday Bloody Sunday"?

Zoli:

Yes, but they didn't put it on the record. It will be on a Soundtrack.

---

On August 17th I had the possibility doing an interview with Brett Rasmussen from
Ignite. They've played an amazing show at the Alte Maelzerei in Regensburg and
after the show he took some minutes to do this interview....



Ploedi:If you'd first introduce yourself to our readers...

Brett:I'm Brett from Ignite, I'm the bass player in the band.

Ploedi:In the last years there were lot's of rumours about the member changes in Ignite, what happened exactly?

Brett:Well basically over 2 years ago our original Drummer, Casey Jones, left the band. We were on tour in 1997. We were on the East Coast in Washington DC and he quit the band and so we replaced him originally with Dough from Slapshot and we went to Europe with Scott from the band Lifetime and then after we went back home we found a new permanent drummer: Craig Andersen is our current drummer. He played in Joykiller and some other bands. Now we took care of the drummer and then in February 1998 Joe D. Foster left the band and he was replaced by Brian Baldschack from the band 1134 and so now for about a year and a half that's been the line-up in the band: Brett, Zoli, Craig and Brian. We've done three or four tours and we wrote the whole new record. So were ready going into the studio right now.

Ploedi:Why did Joe D. Foster leave?

Brett:Just some differences within the band. It was just the time for him not to do Ignite anymore. There was no bitter ending. I mean he quit and it was ok.

Ploedi:As you've already told there is a new CD coming out do you already have any information on this one?

Brett:Yeah, the new CD is called "Violent Times". And in America it's gonna be on TVT Records and once we recorded it in September we'll find a record company for Europe.

Ploedi:Like 3 Months ago you were booked for several shows in Germany why did you cancell the tour?

Brett:Well it was never a complete tour, only a couple of shows here and there. If we would have been able to do that we would have booked the tour around those Festivals. But it looked like were going into the studio in May and then it looked like we're going into the studio in July and then it finally got pushed back into September. This allowed us to come here and do the Warped Tour, play some Festivals and some small clubs to help promoting the new CD for next year.

Ploedi:Do you plan doing some new experiments on the new record or will it be a typical 'Ignite-style' record?

Brett:I think it will be everything. There's 14 - 16 songs and propably 8 of them will be standard Ignite-typical Hardcore tunes and just like on "Call on my brothers" we have some slow songs like "50 and a month". And for us at that time it was experimenting so yeah I think with two new people writing songs there's gonna be some kind of a different sound but it's pretty hard to change Zoli's voice. Zoli's voice is Ignite so it's gonna sound like Ignite.

Ploedi:You guys seem to be U2 fans?

Brett:Yeah you know we were practicing one day and we knew that we'll play a big festival in Hungary so we were thinkg to play a cool cover-song. Because we knew it's gonna be a Rock and Roll Festival and not too many people would know Ignite so we started messing around with a U2 Song: Sunday Bloody Sunday. But we didn't play it on the festival. Tonight was the first time we've played this one live.

Ploedi:Why did you leave Revelation Records?

Brett:We were signed from them for three records and we had to work out a deal with them and our new company. they had to work out a deal with laywers and everything so it took long time and that's another reason why it took us so long to put a new record out because of all the legal obligations and stuff.

Ploedi:I heard you had trouble with Lost&Found Records?

Brett:Well, we had a deal with Lost&Found since 1995. We just weren't happy with them so we decided not to work with them any more. I think maybe they were a good record label for the very very beginning of the band just because they helped us coming over to Europe to start our career in Europe but for the long run it wasn't a good move.

Ploedi:What's your opinion an tolerance within the Hardcore scene?

Brett:I really don't see too much problems. For my experience I know there are some people that just don't like other people but I don't think that has to do anything with Hardcore. I think that people just always are in groups and they talk shit about other people wether it's at school wether it's in music, at your job or in business. People are just mean I think a lot of times. I mean I don't really see too many problems in the hardcore scene, you know. If we play together with bands like Pennywise or Rancid or any of those other bands that aren't considered to be typically a hardcore band. We never had problems anywhere and I think it's more people make a big deal out of nothing.

Ploedi:As you've said, there will be a new CD. Are there any other future plans like touring?

Brett:Well we're doing this Warped tour now and then we go into the studio September 10th to do the new record with the producer Tom Wilson, he was responsible for some Vandals stuff, he did the first reall big Offspring record "Smash" so he's got some good records under his belt so we're pretty excited going into the studio with him. And then it looks like we might go on tour in America to do some early promotion for the record in November. And then take December and January off and once the record comes out hopefully late January then we'll tour for two years straight. Start in America then do Europe go to America again then do European Festivals in the summer then go to Japan, Australia and South America come back to Europe do America again and so on, it's just we'll propably be here 6 times within the next two years.

Ploedi:If you've got some final words?

Brett:We're just really excited about the new record. We have a bunch of new issues that we're gonna bring up. Some new groups that we are really strongly involved with. There's a group called "Doctors Of The World" which is Doctors through out the world who pretty much give up money and time to go to places that are messed up like Kososvo, different places in Africa that were having wars and give up their time give up money give up their life to go work for free to help people. That's a group that we're really looking into and wanna help promote on the new CD as long with some other environmental groups as always like the "Sea Shepard" and "Earth First" and stuff like that which are always important to us. I don't know... We're just really excited getting new songs out because it's been a while and getting some new messages out. It's important for Zoli to have something important to say. It's important for him to deliver a message instead of singing about some stupid stuff. And letting people hear some new Ignite songs for the first time in three years.

Ploedi:Talking about those doctors... what's your opinion on the Kosovo Conflict?

Brett:Well I just think it's a sad situation. No matter what the situation was, to me it's just sad to see people killing other people but it's such a violent area that it's hard to say that our involvement in the long run did a lot of good. You know because there's been problems for thousands of years and just because we go there and try to stop it doesen't mean it's gonna stop. But I don't care if it's Canada or Kosovo or Russia or whereever I think unjust killing is wrong and it needs to be stopped and I agreed with our involvement. I thought: Fuck there people are getting slaughtered. There needed to be a stop to it. And it looks like it stopped but now you have the Albanians returning to their homes and theres is nothing, their homes are gone, their families are dead and now they turn around and do the same thing so it's a big cycle. It's just fucked up. So, I don't know if there's ever gonna be a cure. I think us going over there to help is better than doing nothing at all.



Well, that was the interview with Brett from Ignite who did a good job doing this one, thanks to him and the rest of the band!