First question:
In regard to the set today I know you motioned for everyone to circle pit and then you turned around and laughed. Now I have a whole rant about that shit so I want to know why you laughed? Were you serious?
George : Nah I just try to see if people do it or not. Its weird how things are so different on west coast and east coast, because when we do that on the west coast it doesn’t make sense, it’s crazy, people do it; and once in awhile on the east coast. But normally on the east coast and the west coast people just in the crowd laugh and I normally just laugh.
D: I always felt ‘circle pit’ had nothing to do with my hardcore, people danced.
G: Me neither, me neither. I just try to see if people do it.
D: I love We're UnStoppable and The Beat Goes On, but forgive me I don’t know a lot about where you guys are from or your background.
G: Yeah, I don’t know, that’s really all. We weren’t really in any other bands. Me and Tim did a band, like a faster early ‘80s hardcore band called No Rights that put out a demo and that was it. And then we just did this.
D: What were some of your peer bands, bands you started playing with, put shows together with?
G: With Blacklisted? No one really. We had 2 other guys that wanted to concentrate on school and stuff and then Tim and I just started touring as much as we could.
D: So Philadelphia. I am going to throw one of my favorite bands from my day out there. PAGAN BABIES.
G: I know about them guys. They are from , actually, my neighborhood, like a neighborhood away from mine, they’re from Frankfurt. A friend of mine, his brother, was friends with them, he actually filled in for Killing Time too. He has a Pagan Babies crew long sleeve that he wears. Its pretty sweet.
D: He should Ebay that fucker.
G: laughs.
D: I heard some stories, what the hell happened out there this week. I don’t want you to have to re-live a nightmare but you have had a nightmare of a week so far.
G: Oh on tour. Yeah. We got denied at the border (Canadian) because I have an open court case that I have to go back to after this tour. So they didn’t let us in. Then on the way back to Vermont we hit, I guess, Black Ice, or I guess any kind of ice and our van just spun out on control and we went off the side of the road, but luckily our trailer saved us from flipping, but the trailer wound up flipping. We got towed out of that. So we said we were going to just chill and like go to sleep and then leave the next day. We had got in an accident like a week prior to this tour, so the hood was loose on our van. So the next morning when we were leaving…you ever see that movie TOMMY Boy?...the hood just flew up and smashed our whole windshield. So we had to drive… we drove like 700 miles with a smashed windshield, Ace Ventura style, and then got to Cleveland and got it fixed this morning. It was about to fall through at any moment, but for some reason we just kept going.
D: You’re still smiling?
G: Yeah I mean our record is call The Beat Goes On….we gotta live up and We’re Unstoppable. We gotta live up to these expectations I guess.
D: My Space good or evil?
G: It’s good, I don’t know, I keep in touch with a lot of people on there.
D: Next questions not really a question. I really pay attention to whose working out there and from knowing nothing about you and receiving We’re Unstoppable from Deathwish with MLIW, and Embrace Today last year you came on my ma and I have just watched a young band work non stop and stay on the road. This is a compliment and its starting to translate I think. You are utilizing My Space as the solid tool it can be you made a second record that really brings you guys into your own and you have been relentless on touring, you feel like you are getting to a point you can carry this yourself?
G: We’ll play wherever. I don’t care, we don’t care. It doesn’t really make a difference as long as we are playing. That’s another reason we kept going, I mean you gotta keep going. Once you stop…Your steam has to keep going. You gotta keep pumping. That’s all.
D: What’s wrong with George?
G: UUUuuhhhhhhh. I don’t know. You ever heard that Ill Bill record “What’s worng with Bill?” That’s where I got that from. It’s a song that a felt like, I just wrote that song and then I needed a title and I was listening to that record at the time…and then I just, I don’t know…cuz I wrote that song about me and I just felt like it was good. A lot of people, I guess, when you start to get some notoriety in a band, a lot of people say things about you and you can’t always defend. Like I can’t go on every message board and tell people why I do wear long sleeves or say certain things, I can’t explain myself. That’s just a song I worte about myself so if anybody reads into it they could understand me personally. The whole Beat Goes On record is my whole personal life. There is no…There is a song about an old friend but there is no like cliché….
D: (I interrupt) lyrics are very introspective, self aware but not cliché on contrived, mater of factly…
G: Both records are, even We’re Unstoppable. This one is even more like, The Beat Goes on, like I had a couple family members die this year, like an aunt from a heroin addiction overdose, that I was really close with, like she taught me how to tie my shows, you know that hit big, and I was on tour. What was crazy was when all this was happening, like you said, with us touring so much, I was on tour and I can’t fly home. We don’t make enough money where I can fly anywhere, let alone home every time someone dies. I would be calling home when this would happen and talking to my mom and dad or my family and they would just say, ”keep going.” “ You can’t do any good here, you might as well stay gone.” That’s where I got that record title actually. I just wrote that record about my life at the time, like what was going on.
D: Deathwish. I like everything they are doing right now.
G: Yeah the best, the best. Jake he does a lot of work and he’s really busy like with his art and his own band. Tre McCarthy, he was like a tour manager for Ween and Boy Sets Fire, he’s like a roadie, he mostly runs the label. Tres more the go to guy cuz Jake so…he’s swamped, he’s a busy guy.
D: Luke (The Killer) told me I could ask this. Did you get shot?
G: Yeah. When I was like 17 in my neighborhood. I lived in like a bad neighborhood and there was a fight that happened and I was going to go watch it. Anybody that says they don’t like to watch a fight is a liar. So I went and there ended up being a lot of us and people started shooting at us and I just wound up being one of the ones that got shot.
D: So they weren’t just shooting and it was a stray bullet?
G: No, No, No(make no mistake tone) they were shooting at us.
D: Because you were watching a fight?
G: I was going to….The fight didn’t even happen. We were walking towards it and the people that were going to be in the fight, with the people I was with that were going to fight, just wound up shooting at us. I just wound up being one of the ones that got hit in my wrist. I had to get operated on to get the bullet out. It was crazy.
D: What was that neighborhood?
G: Juniata. Its like a couple blocks from Frankfurt where the Pagan Babies are from.
D: Relentless on the road you get to see a lot of things out there: scenes, crews, venues, people, cities. What have you seen or experienced lately positive or negative?
G: The good comes with the bad and vice versa I guess. Good stuff I guess, sometimes we will just play places that aren’t really open to hardcore like Laredo TX. Where it’s like there is not many hardcore kids there but 2 or 300 people will come to a show. Just cuz its like there is nothing else you can do there, it’s cool to see that. People support something they don’t really have any idea what it is. Its easy now for a seventeen year old kid to go on the internet and read some message board and learn about every band that’s hip then go to their show and stick around only for that band, like wait for the last band to play and be into them, but its harder to find every band that’s out, like Iron Age that us and Mental brought on this tour, and amazing band that we thought people should have their eyes open for. It’s shitty to say, but the computer is a good tool, its 2006, its not 1983 anymore. Like I was only 1 in 1983 I can’t imagine living with out a computer and its like a good tool to find out bands and shows and meet people, but you still gotta realize, you gotta try to support everything, you can’t support what’s cool on the message board just because someone pumps Blacklisted everyday on a message board. It doesn’t mean we’re the best band you should come check us out for yourself. You should check out the bands that open for us or play after us. Bad stuff it’s just like petty people… like they expect bands to live up to some expectation. If you’re a straight edge band you always have to be a straight edge band and then when your not people will turn their back on you. That’s what our song How Quickly We Forget is about: One minute people are letting you in and embracing you, the next minute their walking away and turning their back. And you just got let it be water under a bridge and just keep going. It’s shitty because the same people that will turn their back on a straight edge band that isn’t straight edge anymore will be the same people that will go home on their computer and download Judge on their Itunes, or Bold, like them guys don’t give a fuck about straight edge. C’mon you gotta support what’s out now.
D: We’re unstoppable is the perfect combination, track 9 especially, of Cro-Mags, Leeway, Raw Deal. I don’t mean to say bite but more like your influences are evident and worn proudly. Then you did that NYHC, with Life Of Agony thrown in, at KOC last time here…
G: and we have new instrumental on our new record that has a like a Supertouch beginning.
D: where does that come from? Are these you favorite bands? Bands you grew up on?
G: Yeah. Well I didn’t grow up on them because I am young, but they are bands that I got into. Like the first record I owned, one of them, was dropping many suckers by madball. And I just read the thank you sheet and all the bands you mentioned are in that thank you sheet and I checked out bands like Negative Approach that I love, AF of course. The last four songs on We’re Unstoppable are our demo and when we got together that what we wanted to sound like, and then I guess as we kept writing music we were like we should add some other stuff. I love Leeway and Raw Deal and Madball and all them bands. As much as I say you can’t keep living in the past, I LOVE those bands!
Blacklisted have a new record out The Beat Goes On you can get it at Deathwish.
www.blacklistedhardcore.com
www.deathwishinc.com
www.myspace.com/blacklisted
Check the internet, but go check out Blacklisted live, they deliver on record and on the road!
