1. Would you first introduce yourself to our readers, please?
whats up?

my name is frank and i play guitar and write the music for NJBLOODLINE. wreak
sings, joey plays bass and ian plays drums.



2. How and when did you guys get together ?

actually NJBL is very old and has changed members over the years. started in
1992 by wreak, his friend jim ( guitar) , mario ( guitar) and his brother tony
(drums), they got together to jam some covers of hc shit and drink beers. they
wrote 5 songs and then problems arose. they released a demo ( self titled) and
sold 300 copies very fast. but all was not well. in 1993-1994 jim left due to
a drug problem, tony left due to a great job a polo clothing and then bassist
left due to personal issues. they had played with all the bands you could have
named that played in those years ( from the bad brains to dog eat dog to everyone
else) and they did it for fun because then bands did not get signed easily and
the future for most hc bands was bleak in terms of the music industry . my my
my, how things have changed huh? joey stepped in to play bass and their friend
ray picked up on drums until the demise of NJBL in 1995 mostly due to the closing
of THe place for shows in the area. a club called STUDIO ONE was home to all
the local bands ; the HUMAN OFFENSE, BULLDOZE, 141, Victims of Society ( VOS)
strength 691, 25 ta LIFE, Dog eat Dog, and many many more. Every major or minor
band that came close enough to it played it. Its closing virtually destroyed
the central jersey scene. and with it NJBL, for besides the much smaller PIPELINE,
which is now a parking lot, there was no longer a vast and energized scene locally
to play. i met joey at a mutual relative's wedding. pretty coincidental huh?
we talked about music and decidd to jam. i jameed twice with joey and ray. we
hit it off and jammed with wreak . our of those few jam sessions we wrote Blackout#2
(on new record) amd LOVE SONG ( from be afraid demo). we got mario back involved
ad NJBL was back. ray left 2 months later due to personal and legal issues.
we meet ian after a band callled FATNUTS kicked him out for being TOO metal
of a drummer. this lineup stayed together to record the BE AFRAID demo currently
on RPP and lasted until jan 1999 when mario left.



3. You have released a demo and a MiniCD on RPP - after that it got pretty quiet
about you, what have you been doing?

well actaully our demo was out self distributed through mail order and via shows.
i remember getting lots of mail as the tape spread. since then we have concentrating
on getting the name out by laying as many shows as humanly possibly for guys
with full time jobs. we never disappeared we just kept promoting the demo. but
other problems arose that really stalled us .since recording be afraid so many
things have chaanged in our personal and work lives that things did get hard
for a while but some how we did still play shows and push the release globally.




4. In some years things can change, what do your lyrics deal about?

wreak' s lyrics deal with mostly his observations either through his eyes or
through the eyes of someone else. he is a writer and utilizes most writer's
conventions. fist is commentary, six feet deep is autubiographical, be afraid
- in the first part is the world seen through the eyes of the UNABOMBER- ted
kascinski and the second part his observations of the drug crazed urban environment
of elizabeth or etown ( slang for elizabethtown). love song is about his personal
experience with his ex girl. on the demo he actually says a piece about it.
lets is autobiographical but surreal about his growing in etown with all the
roughness around him and his postve experience dealing with life after he has
found this thing called hc that allows him to vent his frustrations. four winds
is metaphorically about hc dancing and the thrill he gets from it, done in a
very exagerated language and imagery.



5. What else that Hardcore is important to you?

well we are all different and are not hc from dawn to dusk. we all live normal
lives and work, except wreak. we really are so diffefernt that to effectively
answer this could take days but we do like to hang with each other when possible
and we all love music. i am studing to do web design. joey has a side band called
LIBATIONs . ska reggea like sublime. ian works and plays his drums alot. i work
out and so does ian. wreak reads alot and is into crazy stuff. i dont know what
else to say ha ha. we are like a circle of friends who play music.



6. What's your opinion on Veganism and Straight Edge?

well i am not either and neither is anyone in NJBL. we love music. we are not
trying to change peoples minds about anything. we like to have fun and wreak
likes to spit his opinions but other than that we dont affiliate our selves
with any of these movements in hc. not that we put them down either , we just
dont get involved with that stuff because everyone has a diferent perspective
and even that changes in time so we figure enough bands do that and have done
that that we dont both. we'd rather write kick ass stuff and have fun. wreak
has something to say he says it. but other than that we do it more for the release
and fun than a mission. to each his own. you gotta find your own way in life.
our own personal views do vary on those subjects so we try not to let that divide
us from each other or the scene .



7. Tell us something about some other good bands from the NJ Area! Whats going
on there?

to tell you the honest truth i am so busy with things that i cant even make
most shows so i dont know. the NJ scene has gotten sucked in to the rising national
scene. there are not many bands in NJ. redline, ensign, etown, eyes of the blind,
arson, clubberlang is back by the way, nothng lost and others. but the places
to have consistant shows have crumbled. but now this rising national scene with
bigger bands has emerged. so there are many shows in the nj/ ny area but not
on the local level like years past. its either really small local show or 5
big band marathon shows. things have gotten slow i think for the regular underground
in general. plus metal in nj has made a comeback. alot of bands we knew are
broken up and the togetherness of the nj scene has disappeared. but there are
alot of small youger bands that are cropping up around nj , ny , phili area
so they might be able to bring things back but the people we seen at shows everyweek
are all out of the scene mostly of playing in bands or have labels so the innocence
of 2 years agao even , has been shattered. its weird, NJBL has survived another
major change in NJHC. NJBL is NJ's cockeroach, ha ha, we just dont quit.



8. Would you see you as a political band oder political persons?

as a band we are not political because again we all have different views and
we respect that enough not to use it in a way the disrespected members but as
individuals some of us are very political versus others. i am probably the most
political. i love politics and read alot about its history and effect. none
of us are involved directly with any political groups or anything like that.
i read way too much stuff on politics i think ha ha but thats a whole other
story.



9. Are you active in some other bands, labels or zines?

joey has a ska reggea band like sublime/ operation ivy. ian just concentrates
on his own skills mostly. i do all the bands busines so i keep up with alot
that way and wreak is the eternal fan . he talks to everyone and anyone. he
is a very active member in the scene on a personal level . years ago a friend
had a zine called GOD BLESS HC and he wrote many things for them but since they
stopped doing the zine he has not done any other ones.



10. What are your favorite NON hardcore bands?

i love too many bands. right now i am into the new morbid angel record, sara
mclaghlin, miles davis, 2nd record beastie boys, portishead, carcass, type o
negative, and of course my favorite band forever--black sabbath. joey has been
into the misfits for years and sublime, the red hot chili peppers, and old 80's
early 90'''s rap. wreak is into weird stuff and no one even knows ha ha. i dont
think there is anything he has not heard of at the very least. he is like the
music encyclopedia. ian is into mad death metal and jazz. he loves mainstream
rock stuff and classical. he like meshauggah, death, morbid angel, suffocation,
madonna, jewel, stravinski, buddy rich, candiria, third eye blind, deftones
ha ha the list goes on...



11. Where are your influences?

my influences are mainly 80"s metal , hc and punk. i learned to play in the
mid eighties and black sabbath, ozzy, metallica, and slayer got my attention
early on. then i graduated to suicidal ,and DRI. then to nyhc, then to west
coast and english punk, then to death metal then to classic rock then to weirdo
shit ha ha. so to me music is all the same , really. last week i bought a louie
armstrng cd, a sara maclachlin cd , and the new morbid angel cd . the store
clerk thought i was a nut but i told her that to me even though it sounds different
to me me its the same. randy rhoads is probably my fav guitar player because
he did something profound in his time with the combining of classic and rock
guitar playing. and defintely metallica. i knew every song off the first 4 records
ha ha.



12. What was your best show and what was your worst one? hmm?

thats tuff because alot of our shows have been great and alot sucked and there
are tons in the middle. some of our best shows are august 2000 in san francisco
, CA at gilman street. 3000 miles away people knew all our words and danced
like lunatics. we felt really good, played good and there were no fights so
it rocked. Coney island high ( rip) in nyc. we played virginia the day before
and that was cool and then we just made the 6-7 hour ride to nyc to play. it
was our first show there and we thought since there was not a big band that
the show might not be too good. EVERYBODY GETS HURT played too. there were not
many people and when we set up we looked out to the crowd and all the sudden
there were many more people in the club. plus vinne stigma and all the older
dms heads where there chillin next to the stage when we were playing. again
people went s nuts andd we had a fucking blast. we played a show at a hall in
nj right after our demo came out with DILLENGER ESCAPE PLAN and we had a packed
show and the pit was almost wall to wall in all four directions. friends told
me it was the most violent pit they have ever seen. ha ha so that felt good.
there are more but those are a few good shows. as for bad shows ha ha. we have
played shows in front of 2 people on tour, played shows in peoples basement
to 5 people last minute because a club refused to have the show at showtime.
um? we played a show in nj with a bunch of white trash metal bands so it was
a mixed crowd. hc kids for us and drunk older metal heads dancing together.
i knew something would happen and of course a fight broke out. it went from
upstairs where we were playing all the way downstairs over the merchaandise
table outside onto the street. they wanted us to stop playing but we dont stop
for fights because thats bullshit. even though 3/4 of all the people left in
the fight for those who remained we kept playing until finally the cops got
in our faces and unplugged the equ ipment. we almost got beat up by the police
and they were really hating wreak as he was telling them to fuck off. around
the time of that show we still hold our record of 12 shows in a row with a fight
at eaach. so that was a whole month of bullshit actually. we played shows were
we got the plug pulled out in 5 minutes. cops shutting down shows. shows with
mad fights which is my personal pet peeve. i hate people who fight at shows.
they ruin shows and thats what destroyed the NJ scene. i am not against fights
themselves but damnit tae it out side and down the street because these fights
have gotten clubs closed and stopped little kids who are the scenes future from
coming to shows out of fear.



13. How did you get in contat with Alain and why did you choose RPP?

funny that you ask . we released be afraid january of 1998 officially. we sold
alot of tapes in the first week. kenny from etown , who is our friend, knew
aj from resurrction ad since he lived near him and was hooking up etown with
a new deal for time 2 shine. he gave aj our tape and he instantly wanted to
sign us. we talked it he seemed for real. then as time dragged on he got so
caught up with the etown release he put us to the side. then he got shady with
us. he stalled getting things done. in the meantime alain contacted m. somehow
he got our shit and liked it. he asked to release it. we told him the if aj
doesnt work out we would work with him. as it turned out aj did not work out.
various reasons but to summerize i will say we are not giving anyone out copyrights
and ownership of our name and logo. that is bullshit and we are not tools. so
after at least a year and a half of selling tapes and waiting for aj to get
his shit together went with alain and rpp. alain is a good maan and i wish we
would have worked with him from the start because all that waiting and uncertainty
with aj almost destoyed the band. alot of fighting happened amongst ourselves
due to the frustration and uncertainty. i think that really stole alot of our
fire and set us back big time. so we dont particularly like aj and we dont support
him or his label in any way. we feel he is shady and doesnt not have a label
out of love for hc like alain. he is looking to be the next victory and always
talked so much shit about how big he is gonna be and blah blah blah. even etown
had problems with him. theres are more serious and when we seen how bad we decided
he was not right for us. by the way i want to shout out OLI JUNG for his help,
support and dedication to NJBL from the time we met aj to this very day. he
helped us alot and we thank him.



14. Do you have lot's of contact to the european Scene?

well yes, we have many friends in europe now so we talk with alot of people
. its really hard when you work full time, play full time and go to school and
try and write music and all to stay in touch with all the bands and whats going
on. pete , spill the blood records, settle the score, marcel and drift, copykill,
koen da barbarian and full court press, chris rykers and KF, jani and opi of
cartel records, stephan ( where have you been?) axel de mil, crawlspace, jean
marc in france, paulo in italy, the italian peeps, the list goes on and on.
we have met so many cool people and we hope to hang with everyone someday on
their turf.



15. What about some new releases? Again on RPP?

WE are FINALLY releasing a full length album for KINGFISHER records in january.
like i said before we did have alot of probelms with labels and finding a deal
were we at least retain our copyrights and ownership of our songs and we did
have personal problems too so this release is special to us. we wanted to make
it special for people too . it is called " faceless". it is out first official
release in a planned way. all we ever recorded was the be afraid demo and cut
that into smaller releases to get the name out but we never had an official
record. so the record contains 1 song from the 1993 demo and 2 songs off the
be afrad demo and then all the other material we wrote after, plus some surprises
and a cover. to us we made it almost like a bio of what NJBL has been over the
last 7 or 8 years and were we want to go. it is pretty diverse and like the
last effort all the songs are unique. that is our strong point i think. we dont
rewrite the same song over and over again because that is boring and we all
have different styles so when i write music i try to think about joey for a
song or ian. we could write 9 more FIST's but i would be bored and that takes
away from the specialness of FIST. alot of bands play a certain thing and dont
do anything else. i like the fact that we can play fist and then six feet deep.
one song is hard and aggressive the other is groovy, simple and sing alongish.
and then we have love song which is deeply personal, melodic and has our OI
2 step, ha ha. so i think if you like be afraid this will compliment your collection.
it is more mature too. as for the concept of the title. it is a concept record
in terms of the layout, the song titled "faceless" or as marcel says the " dope
song" ha ha and we did little things on the record. we did not use any samples
from movies this time as we feel that is played out ao we made our own. the
name " faceless" refers to how the music industry is strip mining the undeground
and with dollar signs in their eyes bands are playing the fool to the label
at HC's expense. today hc is more about who produced your record and how much
you spent rather than saying something to the kids. mainstream music has ripped
off the HC style in terms of clothes and fake dancing ( limp bizcuit, papa roach
and such) and we wanted to address that. we recorede at the same place we did
our demo because we were limited in funds but also we wanted to help produce
it our selves and not have some jerk tell us how we should sound. we are a hc
band and we do shit ourselves as much as we can. we called the record faceless
after the song named the same because music today is nothig more than a product.
there is less art and integrity today than years ago. there is nothing wrong
with making money but too many people have ost sight to what made HC special
from the rest of the industry. when you put out a release today in the Hc scene
or music in general you in essence are " faceless" becuase all that release
is, is a BARCODE in a record store. and there are thousands of them . so your
message gets lost and you in essence you become like a product on a shelf in
a store. i know people in bands who are more concerned with their SCAN numbers
than what and how the kids feel. but that is another story altogether. wreak
addreses that in the song " update" we also have a split cd coming out with
SETTLE THE SCORE, AND SWORN VENGENCE ( CA) on GRAPES OF WRATH RECORDS in europe
and japan and on the rise in the usa, sometime in december. shout out to grapes
of wrath and pete and settle the score and sworn vengence, chuck and on the
rise records.we could have looked for big bands to do this with to have a better
market place in the scene and for better exposure to ensure success so we can
be on MTV and tour with metallica but we will let other bands who really want
to pimp themselves and HC out that much do that. we have friends and enjoy working
with them so....



16. What do you think about religion in Hardcore music?

this question could get me in trouble ha ha. just like str8edge and vegansim
we all in the band have different ideas about religon and we are not here to
change people. we enjoy playing more than argueing so NJBL is not the vehicle
for that topic. wreak expresses his point of view in one line on the song FACELESS.
but he does not represent the band fully with his thoughts. my beliefs are radical
and ian was not even raised with religon so he has no idea ha ha. i think just
like any other ideoligy as long as it is not shoved down your throat or used
to divide people its cool but we dont concern ourselves with that too much.
i have listened to krishna bands, christian bands, satanic bands and bands that
preach god dont exist. aside from my beliefs i can listen to anything and not
judge. everyone makes good points but again NJBL is not going to be the band
that sings songs about religon, str8edge and veganism. if that is what you want
there are tons of bands that do that. unless of course wreak writes a song about
it ha ha. we as a band let wreak write about what he wants but we do proof read
his lyrics and if we dont like them or feel they dont fit what we are ddoing
we get him to rearrnge or change what he can. but lyrics are wreaks domain.
i write the music and that comes first so whatever the music inspires wreak
to write is cool with us.thats what HC is about anyway. expression, especially
personal. but again we are not a band with a hardon to piss people off or to
make waves for no reason. we deal with what we deal with for expressions sake.
not to follow a trend or conform. i think there is too much conformity today
in HC and too many people are afarid to be themselves. i know it got us in trouble
with people who want to think we are a certain way because we dont address an
issue or because we have mids of our own. whatever, its all relative i guess,
right?



17. Where do you want to see yourself in the future?

im going to school for web design so hopefully i will have a new job soon. as
for the band we are hoping this release finally gets us the attention we feel
the music deserves. i cant predict the future and all i can say is we love to
play and will until we cant for whatever reason.



18. Are you planing a european tour? yes, we are coming one way or another.
we have friends that can help us out and who knows. we want to come to europe
next may or june when the festivals are going on and play for 3 or 4 weeks.
we sold alot of t shirts and demos and cds in europe and we want to play for
our fans. same with japan. but that may have to wait. right now we are all concentrating
on this release and getting it out and we will deal with touring accordingly.
so hopefully we shall hang when we get there ha ha.



19. Final Words?

ha ha after writing a book what is left to say? i want to thank you for this
interview and your involvement in the scene. we want to thank all our friends
in europe, you know who you are. pete and settle the score, chris and KIGFISHER
records, alain and RPP , spill the blood rcords, &grapes of wrath for the releases
and the support. and mostly all our fans. the fans are the reason why we do
this. we are fans too. the music is the most important thing. not the hype or
the fantasy. today HC is very different than years ago and alot of people are
using HC to make a living when maybe they shouldnt. but its up to the fans to
decide who is full of shit and who really cares. the actions of bands prove
what they fell and represent. we think the scene is better when people forget
their differences and get together in fun and good spirit to enjoy music rather
than to use it to divide and destroy. we hope that kids wwill open their eyes
and police their scenes because when things go bad they go bad for good. like
i said before in NJ things went bad and they are not the same. so cherish what
you have because you cant get it back. even NYHC is not what it used to be.
we have a website WWW.NJBLOODLINE.CJB.NET we appreciate your vsisting it. for
band info other than what is there relating to questions , merch, or anything
else you can contact me at NJBLOODLIN@AOL.COM or if you want to talk to a lunatic
who enjoys HC a little to much you can contact wreak at GLASSYEYEDDEMON@AOL.COM
or write to NJBL c/o frank gallo 2 predmore ave colonia nj 07067 usa