EB:  Who are you?
Ron Grimaldi:  I'm Ron.
EB:  And what do you do?
RG:  I sing in Deathcycle.

EB:  Does Deathcycle refer to anything specifically or is it just an all purpose term?
RG:  Well, we couldn't find a name and I was trying to find something that reflected my stance, lyrically, and I saw some kind of TV special talking about the natural life cycle and how one thing of nature's waste will create life for something.  Replenishing life; everlasting life.  I realized humans are the total opposite so humans create a death-cycle instead of a life-cycle.

EB:  So a couple of your songs have changed slightly as you've re-recorded them, such as Religion Is Mind Control and Suffer.  So the question would be; why the decision to re-record these?
RG:  Those are the only two songs that, I guess Gary [Bennett, guitar] in particular, felt could be done better.  Our first three releases were one recording and they were kinda rushed.  The drummer laid the tracks down in one take, we weren't even there, because he was moving the next day.  So some songs came out too fast, some songs just weren't quite tight enough.  So Gary in particular was like "yo, we gotta do a record, why don't we re-record a couple of the songs"  that he felt, and I guess I agree, that didn't come out quite as good as they could've.  And we had a new line-up so we were like "fuck it" - no real reason.

EB:  So do you feel that songs reach a point at which they are finalized or could they always change at some point?
RG:  I guess live they could always change.  Recording wise, I generally just think you should record once and move on, unless they come out absolutely fucking horrible.  I'm think you should just capture a moment in time and tape it and then move on, but I understand why we did those two songs because they really did not come out we wanted them to.  Suffer was definitely too upbeat the first time around.  It wasn't meant to be that fast; we always played it slow.  For me, you write a song, you record it, you move on, you keep going; that's how I generally feel.

EB:  Why did you drop the AD from the band name?
RG:  Our name was originally After Death after a Nihilistics song and then we were like "ehh...."  The lyrics didn't really totally reflect us even though the band is awesome and the song is awesome.  So we became Deathcycle AD and we found out a bunch of bonehead Christian bands put AD on the back of their name and that was the last thing we wanted to be associated with so we just became Deathcycle and that's that.

EB:  So you guys have had a lot of line-up changes...
RG:  Yeah, too many...

EB:  What's it looking like right now?
RG:  I think this is the new line-up; I think this is it, man!  It's me and Gary, the original members still, John LaFata on drums, whose been in the band for like two years now, and our bass player, Paul [Delaney], just switched to second guitar and the guy whose been filling in for us, Jay, became our new bass player.  Mainly because Paul couldn't make half the gigs because he's in None More Black and Kill Your Idols so this way we don't have to cancel shows, ever, and we can play everything.  When Paul's around we play as a five piece and when he's not we play as a four piece and hopefully we can be a steady band instead of just some fucked-up, part-time thing.
[At this time Jay has left the band, None More Black has broken up, Kill Your Idols is planning on breaking up, and Paul is back at bass full-time...]

-photos by Billy

EB:  Do you guys have any plans to tour the country as a full time band or is it just going to stay a local thing?
RG:  I don't know if we can tour, really.  Ideally, we would just like to do weekends and as many places as we can, maybe get to Europe some day.  I don't think we can jump in a band and do five weeks; my drummer has a career job, my guitar player has a serious job... I don't.  In general we just don't have the time or else we would.  We'd love to, but it's just not feasible, right now.  We want to definitely try to play every weekend, and play more, and get to as many places as we can, but...

EB:  The cover of the 7"; where did it come from and what is it's significance?
RG:  Brian [Van Meehan] from Kill Your Idols found that.  It's an ancient symbol that means "The Flight of Life and The Certainty of Death."  It's actually been used by one or two other bands, but we didn't know until afterwards.  He showed it to us, we kinda needed a cover, we thought it was awesome.  I don't even know the history behind it; I know it's hundreds of years old, I don't know who drew it, but that was the definition given when we saw it, it said "The Flight of Life and The Certainty of Death" so we knew what it represented and we liked the artwork of it so we took it and whoever owns it; tough shit.

EB:  So on the Kill Your Idols' live stuff on the 4 3/4 CD Andy says that The Path is a Leech Implant song; so who exactly was Leech Implant?
RG:  No, he doesn't say it's a Leech Implant song, I think he says something like "bring up Ron from Leech Implant" or something.  That was my old band, I was in a band in the 90s.  We were like a heavy hardcore band.  We only played like eight shows, we released a demo, we had two songs on a CD comp from Long Island [editor's note: the 516 comp... eh, it's okay], and we were pretty dysfunctional; all our shows ended with me bloody and everyone feeling unfulfilled.  We were pretty messed up.  We didn't go too far.

EB:  So what's the story behind The Path?
RG:  That's an old ass song.  Andy needed lyrics.  Andy didn't have that many lyrics back then and I wasn't playing drums in Kill Your Idols anymore, I was singing in Leech Implant, but I didn't really want to use the lyrics so he was like "lemme see some of your lyrics" I'm like "yeah, take whatever you want" and he liked it and then he was like "well, why don't we both sing it?"  and I was like "alright."  It's an old song about an old girlfriend way, way back when.  Now it's a major part of Kill Your Idols shows; it's cool I get to do a song or two every set, which is awesome.

EB:  The first song on the LP, Suicide Seeds, is about the availability of fresh food and fresh water and how that's...
RG:  It's a little more specific than that.  It's about genetically modified food and corporations that are trying to put copyrights on seeds and their long term goal is to own as many seeds as possible and replace them with seeds that don't replenish life and only have a single life so you have to buy seeds.  If you're a farmer that accidentally, through the wind taking their genetically modified seeds into your crops, then they will sue you for using their seeds without permission.  It's really corrupt and Monsanto have sued, I believe, three or four hundred family farmers in the United States already for this and it's just disgusting.

EB:  Who exactly is Monsanto?
RG:  Monsanto is the company that's manufacturing these seeds.  You can do some research on it, there's books and DVDs; Seeds of Deception is one of them.  The best way to fight it is to eat organic; especially corn and soy in particular.  Something like eighty percent of the corn in the United States is genetically modified and it's not healthy food, it's not edible, when they feed it to animals the animals walk away; they don't even recognize it as food, even though it looks like it.  It's just corporate America trying to control everything and make profits off of everything and they're destroying nature in the process.

EB:  Do you believe that people, such as those involved in the PNAC, are genuinely evil or just misguided people with good intentions?
RG:  I don't know if they're truly evil or if they honestly think that's the way things should go.  They're my complete opposite as far as idealism goes and I think they put profits before people and I think they're just really sick fucks.  I think they have a global agenda and I think it only concerns them and the people in power and i don't think they have the best intentions for the human race or the planet, at all.  I don't know if that makes them evil; it makes them evil in my eyes, but maybe they believe what they're doing is right as much as I believe what I'm doing is right; I don't know.  But I don't think the ramifications of my actions don't lead to the destruction of whole countries and the planet; I think it tries to respect everything and I don't think what they do respects anything except themselves.  I find them very self-serving and sick.

EB:  Ok, on the same track of morality, something I've been thinking about a lot and I wanted to get your take on it; if religion is the basis for morality, as you say in Religion Is Mind Control, then how do we judge what's morally or ethically correct because logic can lead to just as many bad ends as good ends?
RG:  I mean, personally, I just try to live by my own ideals and I try to live in a way that I would want people to treat me.  It's a simple philosophy, for me; try to exist causing the least suffering possible, which I believe is a Flux Of Pink Indians lyric.  I just think you live simply and you tread lightly on the earth and you treat everything with respect and you kind of hope that that reciprocates the same thing back to you.  I don't connect that to a religion.  If people have a faith in some kind of diety, that's fine.  I wouldn't even call myself an atheist, to be honest, I'd call myself an agnostic; I think we're kind of arrogant to think we know what created all of this.  I think religions offer arrogant, simple answers to really complicated questions and I think there's a method of social control and submissiveness that I just won't bow down to personally.  I have nothing against people who have religious beliefs.  If they try to impose them on me, I'm not gonna follow.  I think you live by your own ideals and your own morals and if you connect that to a religion that's fine.  I personally don't, at all.  I just think I live by what I feel is right and to the best of my ability I live respectfully.

EB:  Do you think that the USA as the dominant military superpower of the world should intervene when governments of foreign lands are doing "bad things" and where should one draw the line between them governing their own country and the greater world needing to step in?
RG:  That's a hard one to answer.  I think unfortunately the biggest thing that needs to change in our country, as far what it does militarily, is; they really only do things when it benefits us.  There's always some kind of hidden agenda whether it be for natural resources or for somewhere they want to establish military control or whatever the case may be and I don't think human rights is high up on their interests, be it in the United States or in other countries.  I think that's the basis of most of their decisions and you really sell that to the world so you sell it under the guise of humanitarian aid or doing the right thing to an evil dictator.  Yet we do business with evil dictators all the time and we always pull that card out when there's something we want from a country or a country we want some control over, such as Iraq.  I personally think that our government manipulates it and uses it as a way to sell it to the public that it's doing something righteous and good when it's not really their intention.  I think their intention is behind the scenes and if they really felt that way they would stop doing business with all dictators and make more of an effort.  On the other side I think our government does some good and some humanitarian aid, but we're a dominant force and we bully everyone and we do it in several different ways, through threats, through loans... we basically call the shots and when people don't do business with us they usually pay the price and that's not a government I'm proud of.  I'm proud to live here, but I'm not proud of my government, at all.  I think they take good intentions of the common man and they totally manipulate it and they sell it to us with bullshit and unfortunately most people buy it.

EB:  What are your thoughts on businesses such as Trader Joe's or Whole Foods that can provide healthy and organic foods to lower-income people, but have business practices that aren't the greatest.
RG:  I would liken them to a big, independent, punk label.  They're in the middle.  In some ways it's good, I think it main-streams healthier food, but at the same time I would always support the mom and pop store first.  It's more hands-on, it's more old school America of just small business practices that I much prefer and at the end of the day those companies run no different from most multi-million dollar chain operations.  It's good and bad; it's got some benefits to it, but long-term; if it knocks the small stores out it's certainly bad and I think people should support the small guy first, obviously.

EB:  The song Punk Is A Joke; do you consider yourself a punk?
RG:  Yeah, I definitely consider myself a punk.

EB:  To a certain extent, is it wrong to generalize in that way?
RG:  The song attacks a certain aspect of punk.  The song, in general, is for people who talk anarchy and revolution and all this rebel talk and at the end of the day drink beer or collect records and really aren't socially or politically active at all.  That's my problem; if you talk it you should walk it.  If not, don't walk around with these patches that say anarchy and violence and overthrow the state unless you're doing it!  I mean, I'm more of a punk with progressive ideals and is very anti-establishment; I go to protests, I boycott things, I feel I do my part, but I don't claim to be one thing and do another, I don't think.  I think a lot of people do it.  They have these catchy, almost shock value slogans all over their pants and their jackets and at the end of the day they really live like some guy who listens to Led Zeppelin and just goes to the bar every night and gets drunk.  It's a frustration with those people.  If it's just music to you; fine, but don't pretend it's more than that unless you... y'know.

EB:  Do you feel that protests have an effect or are we fighting a losing battle?
RG:  I have a song that we didn't record yet that's kind of about how frustrating protests are because you have all these people with all this energy who are like-minded and you exchange information and it's kind of like a big cheer-leading thing and it feels great, but at the end of the day it does nothing because they're usually not even listening.  I have very mixed reactions on protests.  I feel like they're worth going to and pursuing and making these people, if nothing else, aware that there is people dissenting against them.  I don't think it will achieve a social change, necessarily, but I think it's a good way of networking and finding like-minded people.  At the same time every time I go to one and a cop takes a picture of my face it's frustrating because you risk getting arrested and stuff, but I think they're worth it in a sense.  I don't think they're going to bring about revolution, but I think they're a good way of meeting like-minded people and hopefully building something.  So I think they're worth it, I just don't think they're the solution.

EB:  A lot of the people I find in my life, and myself included to an extent, who are interested in the same causes as me, we really have a lot of passion to try and help change things, but feel so impotent to be able to cause a change; what are some things you feel the everyday person can do?
RG:  For me personally, I think how you spend your money, where you spend your time, and where you work are the most essential things.  The people in your immediate life, be it your coworkers or your family, those are the people that you can effect the most; the people in your community.  It's like seeds; you plant them and you hope it grows.  Realistically, that's the best you can do.  If you're a consumer activist and you live by your ideals to the best of your abilities and you speak your mind and you spread the word about what you believe in; at the end of the day that's really all you can unless you're going to do something far more radical like the Weather Underground and do direct action type of activity.  For me, that's what I do and hopefully it just leads to better things all around.

http://www.myspace.com/deathcycleny