MERKIT Interview

  Merkit is a hardcore punk band from southern Florida that have been killing it since 2005. They have toured extensively, including Europe - which you can read about in several issues of Maximum Rock N Roll (John Fahy's Column). After I got a copy of their split EP with ROBOTEER several  years ago, I was instantly hooked and I constantly play them on the Annihilation Radio show. Since we are not doing a show this weekend, I thought this would be an interesting post in it's place. The interview questions were answered by Nevin, a super cool guy that runs IFB RECORDS.

  1.) First things first. Who comprises Merkit and what do they play?

Chris does drums, Joe does guitar, and John and Nevin switch off on bass and vocals.

2.) How did you guys meet? Did you attend the same school or have mutual friends?

Ft. Myers has a pretty small punk/DIY scene, so you pretty much know everyone that's interested in this sort of thing. Everyone had played in local bands before Merkit except for John, and we had all lived in Hoople House at one time or another. John and I had both written a song on our own and recorded them with a friend. Joe played drums with John on that. When everyone liked what came out we decided to do a full band together. We knew Chris from the million bands he had done in Naples and got him on the drums.

3.) What type of "real" jobs do you guys have?

I (Nevin) teach middle school social studies. Joe is a screen printer and that comes in handy since his shop has all the equipment ready to go. John works at a furniture store, and Chris is a student in Miami right now.

4.) Merkit releases a lot of their albums using recycled material. Have you released all of your albums like this? Is it purely for environmental reasons or does it also make production cheaper?

It's definitely for environmental reasons first and foremost. I really think punks should take ideas about resource use seriously and put them into practice. We have had no problem finding paper that was going in the trash, or scrap vinyl for stickers, and even used record covers to turn inside out and re-print. You've just got to ask friends that have different jobs to keep an eye out for materials that could be used. Stockpile stuff that you find. I have a huge roll of paper that was thrown out sitting here just ready to go. When you're ready to make inserts/jackets/whatever, we usually cut a template out of plywood and just handcut the paper with razors. When it comes to shipping records I do the same thing - I stockpile old cardboard (John's job at the furniture store can always supply more) and cut it up and ship everything in used cardboard. In over 10 years of doing a label/distro, I've only bought one pack of manila envelopes for shipping (usually I get tons of used ones at school). Other than tape, all my shipping materials are re-used stuff.

Now, an added bonus like you said is that this does make production cost much cheaper. Basically, the jackets we make out of recycled stuff only cost us time and ink for screen printing.

5.) Merkit has a website but not a myspace page. Is there a reason for this?

Yeah, myspace looks stupid, is boring, and is owned by Murdoch who is a crappy businessman and supports crappy ideas and politicians. Again, punks need to take their ideas seriously and act on them. Everyone that talks to us about myspace says it sucks, but they do it to get their music out there. I don't think we should be swallowing corporate pills all the time just to get music out there. Try touring, mailing your records to people, or just lower your expectations about how many people should know about your music. This is punk, and we don't need the most fans or hits on a stupid site. We need good friends and good times and people that take this stuff seriously, not just a bunch of idiots wasting their time on the internet all day.

6.) What other bands and projects are members of Merkit involved in?

Lots - I hope I don't forget anything:

Chris - Drugged Conscience Records, Sloane Peterson

John - Human Crush Records, Your Day Will Come horror fanzine, Panzram

Joe - What the Fuck Happened to Tapes Records, Seven Inches to Freedom zine, Panzram

Nevin - IFB Records label and distro

7.) The Merkit / Resurrectionists split 7" is out now. How did you get hooked up with them?

Merkit toured Europe for 10 days last summer with Her Breath on Glass. Lars that does React with Protest Records had put out an LP with HBOG and did a show for us all in the shed behind his house in Germany. The shed was in this beautiful wheat field and I was eating tons of raw wheat right off the stalk. Lars was real nice to us and cooked an excellent dinner and amazing breakfast the next day. He was listening to raw grindcore while making breakfast, and when asked about this he explained "Pop makes me aggressive." I was real excited to meet him since I had every record he had released on his label and we did some trading and away we went. We couldn't tell if Lars really liked Merkit or not, since his personality was hard to read. A couple months later he emailed me out of the blue and asked if Merkit wanted to do a split with his new band Resurrectionists. We immediately said yes. Resurrectionists has most members of an older band Arsen AKA Konig Der Monster, which put out an LP and a 7" and is well worth checking out too. We screenprinted the covers on recycled paper and got the records pressed and mailed Lars' half off to Germany. The customs office held them for over a month, and I'm not sure what Lars ended up doing to get them, but he did. Germany has the most pain in the ass customs - I'm regularly making fake invoices and promo letters to put in packages that go to Germany because of this.

8.) Are you planning any tours in the future?

We're thinking about some, but nothing solid. We're kind of taking it slow right now. Chris is doing school in Miami, and I'm real busy, so we just do what we can, and when winter comes we'll see.

9.) Are there any other bands from Florida that we should watch out for?

Tons - Florida is hot right now. Again I hope I don't forget anyone. Here's a list -

Divisions (RIP, but Human Crush still has their stuff), Sloane Peterson (Miami pop-punk), Mehkago NT (Miami HC/crust), Worlds (G-ville grind), Diet Cokeheads (G-ville), Merchandise (Tampa), Cult Ritual (Tampa), Slave Scene (Tampa), Horrid Cross (Tampa black metal - gooood), Murder Suicide Pact (reformed w/ a new demo), Give Up (Melbourne), Panzram (Joe and John from Merkit), Crow's Foot (Clearwater crust), Dead Friends (G-ville), Tourist Trap (Jacksonville).

I know there's more, but that's a good start.

10.) Anything else you want to add?

Thanks for the interview, and I just want to encourage people to try to live some of their ideals. Too many punks hear the same "punk ideas" about environmentalism, anti-consumerism, vegetarianism, etc. but don't make any effort to live those out. The best change we may be able to effect will probably come from living a lifestyle that takes these things seriously and serving as an example to others. I know that as a vegetarian teacher I've gotten a number of kids to go veggie, not by talking about it all the time or telling them they should, but simply by answering their questions.

Don't be that punk that's always at the bar but doesn't have $5 for the show.

Don't be the punk that wrecks shit at people's house shows or other DIY venues that are trying to eke out an existence.

Be the punk that's creating things, helping the community grow, supporting people and the scene in general, and being a responsible person.

Merkit killing it live!

Click the link to visit Merkit's Website. There's tons of info on the band, including releases, and links to all the projects the band members are involved in.

OI POLLOI Interview

OI POLLOI rocking out in 2006!

This is a copy of the interview I did with OI POLLOI for a zine a few of my friends and I are working on (which is on hold till we get enough funds to print the damn thing). Keep in mind it is pretty dated (a least a few years old), so some of the things referenced (like PUNK ILLEGAL) may have happened a while ago. 

I have to mention that Oi Polloi have always been one of my favorite bands. Doing this interview meant a lot to me so I am glad that I now have the resources to share it before it hits publication.    

1.) What’s the origin of your band name? Have you changed the band’s name before?

The name comes from the ancient Greek phrase which means "the ordinary people, the mob etc" - it's used by rich people in the UK when they are making disparaging remarks about ordinary folk who have less money than themselves - for example "This restaurant is very exclusive - they don't let the hoi polloi in here". We just knocked the "h" off the beginning as there's no letter "h" in the Greek spelling. This is the name we've had since we formed in 1981 - it's a little bit different than a lot of your typcial punk names like "Total Devastation", "Urban Chaos" or whatever - apologies if there are real bands with those names - those were just the first cliched names that I could think up!

2.) Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think your views on these topics will change over time?

Nowadays I write virtually all the lyrics and Ricky writes most of the tunes although we all have an input into the arrangements and so on. I guess the main theme behind everything is basically respect - respect for other living things - it all boils down to that in the end. We're never going to stop believing in that.

3.) Do you think the new forms of social networking like myspace and other websites are a good way for people to exchange information or do you think it's another way for major corporations to stick their hands into the proverbial "punk rock pie"?

They're a very good way for major corporations to make money through advertising, that's for sure but my major worry is that they make it so easy for governments to gather information on people - I'm constantly amazed by the amount of sensitive information that people put up on their personal pages - it's asking for trouble.

On balance though we decided that we gain more as a band by having our myspace page than we risk but I wouldn't have a personal page myself. Our Oi Polloi page has put us in touch with so many people, made our music more available and we've re-established contact with lots of people from all around the world that we'd lost contact with for years so it's been very useful to us. You've got to constantly treat things like this with a degree of caution though.

4.) Over the many years you have played together as a band there has been much touring. What is the difference between playing shows around Europe and other countries as compared to playing in the United States? Do you think you will tour the US soon?

Touring in mainland Europe is great - despite the effects of US cultural imperialism over here there is still so much cultural variety within such a relatively small area. You can drive for days in the US and everything is pretty similar when you arrive to when you left but in Europe in that time you would pass through several different countries all with different languages, foods, customs, architectures etc - Europe is so much more interesting and the gigs are definitely better too. I'm afraid we find the US a pretty depressing place - so much more ignorance and blind flag waving patriotism etc - not that we don't have that here as well but it's not nearly on the same level as in Amerikkka.

Honestly right now the US is about the last place I would want to spend any time when we can spend it in beautiful cool places like Finland, Slovenia, Sweden instead - so, sorry, no plans to come stateside at the moment - although never say never - and we were actually talking the other day about seeing if we could come and play in the Lakota lands that have recently withdrawn from the US - that would be cool - respect to them for that - way to go!

5.) You have very strong views when it comes to animal rights. Are all the members of your band vegetarian/vegan? What made you start thinking about how your diet and lifestyle affect animals?

Personally, listening to political punk bands like Icons of Filth spurred me to give up meat (Fuck Yes! -ed) - punk can inspire a lot of real change in people when it's done well, there's no doubt about that. Ricky was similar I know and probably Cam as well. We had a big talk about whether we would have a meat eater in the band when Tom our current bassist joined as, not coming from the political punk scene, he ate meat at the time. Our general feeling was that we would rather have a decent person that we got on with even if they ate meat in the band than someone who might be vegan but was full of shit - with the hope that going on tour and seeing how easy it was to be vegan would end up with them changing their diet. Happily that's exactly what happened so now three of us are vegan and Cam is veggie.

6.) I haven't visited Scotland in about 15 years now. How prevalent are aspects of the western culture in Scotland? Is there a McDonald's on every corner or do people generally reject this evil fast food giant?

Scotland is pretty much like most of the other western European countries in that there's plenty bullshit like McDonalds etc all over now I'm sad to say - Starbucks as well, Disney shops, BurgerKing - all the shit that you lot have in the US. There was certainly a lot of resistance to McDonalds when they first opened in Edinburgh with people constantly picketing the place and so on but there's not been so much of that for a while - although plenty McDonalds outlets did get attacked during the G8 protests the other year.

7.) What is punk rock like now compared to when you first started playing? Have festivals like Punk Illegal and others seemed to bring more of a diverse crowd to your shows?

Punk now is a lot more split up into numerous sub-genres but thankfully we still seem to have the ability to appeal to folk into so-called "street punk", antifascist-Oi, hardcore, thrash, crust etc as well as your typical anarcho or peace-punk so we get quite a broad range of folk at our gigs.

It's funny that you mention Punk Illegal in connection with a diverse crowd though because, while it was a great festival and for a great cause, the crowd was anything but diverse - the level of rigid conformity to the black "crust uniform" was pretty depressing - about 90% of the audience looked almost exactly the same - black clothes covered in patches, black baseball caps with patches, bullet belts, short hair at the front with dreads at the back etc etc - you know the score - I know there's a lot of pressure to conform to your peers and Sweden is a pretty conservative place but that still took us aback a bit. It's ok not to wear the uniform you know!!

8.) Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge for offering financial or emotional support?

Maximum Rock n Roll sent us some money years ago that we were able to use to help finance an anti-Poll Tax single we did and we always really appreciated that. I think they just gave away any profit they had at the end of the year by ploughing it back into the punk scene - that's a great philosophy - respect!

9.) Any last words?

Get rid of your TV.