At their show together with Ensign in Munich we (Simone and Ploedi) sat together
and had a little chat with Reilly from Stigmata. All questions were from Simone
and Ploedi did the interview. here we go:
Plödi:
Would you first like to Introduce yourself?
Reilly:
I'm Reilly from Stigmata.
Plödi:
How often hav you guys already been on tour in Europe and how is the current
tour running?
Reilly:
I did 5 weeks with All Out War last year and Length Of Time then we came came
over for Dour and Shock fest this year for a weekend and then we came over
August 11th to the 27 th for a two week tour and everything is going great.
Plödi:
Your new release is on Victory now? How is it going and how did you guys happen
to come on Victory?
Reilly:
Yeah, mhh *laughs*. The first question, Victory Records, it's kinda weird
right now in America they are not supporting us too well, not that they are
not supporting us at all, we haven't toured in America yet and they only handle
us in America. In Europe we're on I Scream records and they are supporting
us over here and Victory will only support us in America because we're only
licensed to Victory in America so the weird thing is that they haven't pushed
our record or had any adds for our record, so we're kinda looking into that
right now, it's kinda something like a love hate situation.
Plödi:
Would you tell us something about your local scene?
Reilly:
Yeah, there is a lot of great bands in the Albany Scene. We're from Troy but
Albany is right next to Troy and that's where this upstate New York Hardcore
scene is based. We got bands like Dying Breed ahm.....
Simone:
One King Down
Reilly:
I mean it's a very close scene, everybody grew up together and I don't know...a
lot of the bands locally are getting pretty popular right now. There is a
sort of Death Metal oriented band called Skinless you guys might be hearing
a lot from them, they are coming to Europe. There is so many bands nowadays,
a lot of good bands not just shit bands. And a lot of bands like to come through
Albany and play, a lot of bands would rather play Albany than New York city
nowadays as it's just a bigger and better scene.
Plödi:
How do you see the developement of the Hardcore scene over the time?
Reilly:
It comes in cycles, actually circles. Every couple of years it gets very strong
and than after maybe after four or five years it dies out again. But then
after a year or two it comes back around again with new kids and I think right
now we're seing a little bit of a decline as there is a lot of new bands coming
out, maybe too many bands.
Plödi:
Talking about the new bands, which of them do you like most, there is lot's
of metal influenced stuff coming out right now?
Reilly:
For me, I'm 28 years old and I've been in the scene since I was 13, me and
Mike, we started doing this band in 1996 I though myself listening to some
older stuff I was listening as a kid, AC/DC and Iron Maiden because I was
bored by what was coming out new Hardcore wise or actually I found myself
buying CDs that I had on vinyl, old Hardcore stuff like Youth Of Today, Uniform
Choice and DYS, like just getting my old vinyl on CD. New stuff kinda bores
me.
Plödi:
Currently there is some relgious and christian Hardcore coming out. How do
you feel about it regarding your band's name?
Reilly:
Mhh there has always been a lot of bands that used antheology in their themes
like Cro Mags being one of the biggest ones so Shelter and of course all of
the Death Metal bands I think every band will have a certain amount of following
so you know only the stronger bands will survive.
Plödi:
How did you guys write the new album "Do unto others" ?
Reilly:
It came about when our original guitarist moved to NYC and he came back where
we all lived and grew up and he was interested in doing it again and I came
out here with some other players with Stigmata got a record deal, I'll make
a long story short, came home, the guys in the band wanted to do it so we
did it, me and Mike wrote some stuff we had fun doing as kids...that's all
that's all we did.
Plödi:
How do you see stuff like violent dancing, kickboxing, windmilling and so
on?
Reilly:
I don't mind the kids violent dance you know when some kid gets in the pit
to punch other kids in the face, that's not cool. As far as it's about flarling
their arms and kicking out that's fine as long as they are not in there to
hurt other kids. Since the beginning of this whole fucking Punkrock thing,
since the beginning it was like: if you're in there in front of the stage
and you're dancing around chances are you gonna get hit. Usually in 99% of
the cases it's not on purpose I think kids should know what to expect. And
just let me say this for the record: Hardcore...hard H A R D means hardcore
it's to get your aggressions out get away from your everyday fucked up school
or fucked up job, it's a fucking let it all out I think some kids have forgotten
about it. And that's fine...don't call it a hardcore show if you don't want
the kids to go off, because in my definition that's what it's all about.
Plödi:
You guys don't have a homepage, we tried to find one but failed..do you ignore
the internet or do you have one?
Reilly:
There is a couple of pages that we're on from different labels but I think
the one with the most knowledge about us is on stepup.com but I'm not sure
about the adress. It says it on the back of óur New York release or
check out I Scream records or Victory.
Plödi:
Why is Freddy from Madball in prison?
Reilly:
I'm not sure if he is in there yet, the week before we came out here he wasn't.
He's only in jail for 3 months I'm not gonna go into detail because that's
not really my place to say but there was an incident that happened in New
York City and let's say he got off pretty well it could have been a lot worse.
I wish him all the luck because he is a good friend of mine.
Plödi:
What are your favorite Tattoos?
Reilly:
Mine, propably my Cro Mags *shows it very proudly* or my crucified skin.
Plödi:
What are your plans for the future?
Reilly:
Hopefully keep making Hardcore music, I'd like to start an Rock 'N Roll Oi
band *laughs*, hopefully a couple more records with Stigmata and come back
to Europe and do some bigger tours and reach a bigger audience here in Europe.
Plödi:
Some final words?
Reilly:
That's it!
