During the last Sick of it all tour through Europe I had the chance doing an interview with Pete. If you search for information on SOIA changing to Fat, you are wrong becaus I think this topic has been discussed to death and I don't care what label they are on, they belong to the greatest band the Scene has on whatever label they are on...I was really excited doing this one because SOIA were the band that brought me to listening hardcore...


Ploedi:

Would you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Pete:

I'm Pete from Sick of it all and I play guitar in the band.

Ploedi:

Do you actually care who is opening for your shows and do you try to keep the prices as low as possible?

Pete:

We try to pick bands that we like to open for us and try to bring bands from America that kids wanna see like a newer band that's up and coming or whatever, we try to do that all the time. The prices we surely try to keep them as low as possible.

Ploedi:

So you are in touch with the promoters...

Pete:

Yeah definitely, but you know plane tickets, the bus, living is pretty expensive but it works out pretty well.

Ploedi:

How was your tour with Slayer in the States, because there was lot's of shittalking on you. And how do you like Tom Arraya's Tattoos (Alleway Dragon)?

Pete

*Big Laughter*

Some shows were really good, some shows like in the middle really sucked. You know Slayer fans are like from 29 to 30 something years old so they are not kids. They don't wanna see anything but Slayer but our fans showed up and they got a lot of the people into it.

Ploedi:

In the interview with Vision Magazine you said that you're not the biggest Pantera fans...So how did you get along with the Slayer guys?

Pete:

You know the guys in the band were cool, when we first got on the tour it seemed that the people who work for them like road managers and management people thought they were the rock stars and that was really disgusting it was like being back like in the eighties like Rock and Roll stupid shit. But Tom Array was like the nicest guy and he really liked our band he was on the stage watching our show every single night. So the guys in the band were cool, it's just the people working for them were pretty shitty.

Ploedi:

Now that your new homepage is online...Watching the Messageboard there is lot's of shittalking and lot's stupid intolerant assholes posting their crap around. What do you think of this and do you censor certain messages?

Pete:

We just let it be, the thing is most of the people don't take it serious. The people who are posting the nasty stuff are like little fools who would never say that to anybody, who never have the courage to like say that to someone. I think it's funny to read all the stupid shit. But sometimes, like once there was something about Raybeez on it and the kid kid posted saying that "It's good that he's dead because his band sucks and we don't have to hear him anymore!". That's just fucked up shit. The guy was a great guy, if you don't like his bands than just don't listen to it and you don't say shit about a dead man you know, that's totally fucked up. But the stuff like making fun of like Lou or Craig that doesn't bother me at all it's just funny stuff.

Ploedi:

What's the background of the song "Martin"?

Pete:

It's about an old man. I live in Manhattan and the guy who takes care of the building his name is Martin. And he was a really old guy and you could see that he didn't change within the times. He was a lonely old man and he was a racist he hated gays and he hated black people he hated me first because of the way I looked, he hated this and he hated that. He started liking me after a while because I would help him out. He was so old and he had to change lightbulbs that he couldn't reach so I did that for him. And then when he passed away nobody cared at all. He had an apartment in the building, he passed away he had no family no friends. And then they had a garbage truck come and they just threw away anything, it was like they threw away his entire life and that was really sad. Like all his belongings, no one came to collect it, no on came to care that he was dead. He was just a sad existence.

Ploedi:

What do you think of the direction the Hardcore scene is moving in the future?

Pete:

When we first came into hardcore. At a hardcore show there would be a punk band playing, there would be an Oi band playing and there would be a hardcore band playing. But then all theese little divisions started happening, like the Straight Edge kids only wanted Straight Edge bands, the kids who like the metalcore stuff only wanted that but that's not what hardcore really is about. It's all about getting along and I think this ruins the whole concept of the scene, it's supposed to be fun. And what theese kids do is they only wanna see the kids that just look like them, it sucks. That's why everytime we do a tour in the States we try to put different bands on. When we get home we'll have Indecision, Hot Water Music and AFI opening for us. We try to bring everybody together, everytime we tour in the States we try to do that.

Ploedi:

At you recent shows in Germany I heard about some very violent pits during your shows, did you recognize this and what's your opinion on rough pits?

Pete:

I didn't really notice, but I mean the pits they do get rough especially at festivals. Because there are so many people and there are actual pits when we play you know at a 15 000 people festival 5000 people are dancing and things get dangerous. It's just the kids they have to watch out for each other you know. You wouldn't wanna be the one on the floor so if you see someone who fell down you just pick him up. And if someone's getting too rough, don't start a fight, just tell him "Take it easy".

Ploedi:

What do you think of the Hardline movement?

Pete:

I really don't care about that shit. It's the same like before, it makes walls, it separates. Like the hardline kids only wanna go to shows with those kids and fight with other people who aren't like them. Then after a while you recognize "Oh it's just ten kids coming to our shows..". And then they wonder why their favorite band is breaking up because a band can't survive playing in front of ten kids every night. Everyone should just open their minds and have fun, it's music.

Ploedi:

Reading several Sick Of It All interviews I never read about a certain ethic behind Sick Of It All. Is there one?

Pete:

We are all just regular people. Anyone can come to our shows, it doesn't matter what you look like it doesn't even matter what kind of music you like. We've been getting a lot of kids coming up to us who are into dance music and techno. But the reason they come to us is because it's so like energetic and it's fun. And there are some hardcore kids who say that this is fucked up...why is it fucked up, those kids have fun that's the same reason the hardcore kids are here, to have fun. So I want you just to be open minded and cool with each other.

Ploedi:

What's up with Creep Division?

Pete:

It started out when we were in Australia with Good Riddance and there was like a joke and it still is *Laughs*. It's just fun for them, Russ and Chuck and Craig and whoever is the drummer at the time. It's just fucking around..

Ploedi:

Did they record the planned 7''?

Pete:

No they didn't record it but I think they recorded a song a compilation. I really don't know much about it.

Ploedi:

Are there some other side project?

Pete:

Sick Of It All is taking up so much of my time. I do so much business either financial or I do T-Shirt designs or have to look oversee clothing designs. Like we have all the band T-Shirts like here in Germany and all over Europe but in Japan we have our own clothing company and we have SOIA clothing. In America we just started our own Alleway Crew clothing line and we have mailorder and all the other shit. There is so much shit to overlook. That takes up all my time. And all the time you come up you have to have new designs. And when there is a new record about to come up you have to come up with the album cover, the designs and that shit.

Ploedi:

What about the future plans with Sick Of It All?

Pete:

It's kind of open in the air right now. We're gonna do the states and we still haven't done New Zealand and Australia which we have to do. But we wanna come to Europe, too because we haven't done France and Spain on this tour and we should definitely do that because we've only been there once this year. And we also wanna release a four song EP. So there is a lot of thinks in the work but we haven't placed them out in the times schedule. And of course there's always gonna be touring and shit like that.

Ploedi:

The main reasons for you to come were those new festivals right now and I heard that you wanna play some really small club shows?

Pete:

Well it's just like clubs in this size because when we wanna book a small club the owners don't want it, because it's too big for their club. Well we came back because we did get all theese festivals like mainstage at Reading, Bizarre, Lowlands , Puckelpop and things like that. There is another one coming up actually two, one in Austria and one in Italy. And we just placed all theese shows around them.

Ploedi:

Some final words?

Pete:

We just wanna thank always all the people who support our band, who buy our records. Because if you don't buy the records of you favorite band your band won't exist anymore. Thanks!


Pete was a really nice guy to talk to and I was so happy being able to do this interview, thanks to Wiebke from Fat making this possible! At the show Sick Of It All have once more proven that they are one of the best live bands on this planet!