I first came in contact with SCISSORFIGHT when my friend Eric dragged me to a show at the Continental NYC in like 1997. I have to say I was fucking floored and have been a fan ever since. People over the years keep asking me what new bands do I like out there, and my answer continues to be SCISSORFIGHT. Here I am. Many years and many SCISSORFIGHT records later, and I guess you’re not a new band anymore, but still one of my favorite.

Ironlung: Is Eric the big guy with the shaved head?

RealiD: Yeah

Ironlung: Yeah, he’s at all of our shows. Did he introduce us?

RealiD: No I don’t think so; I had had a few, as usual, and was on to something else right after your set.

So my point is that here we are years later, 5 or 6 records later, and you are by no means a new band anymore. But what I see and hear in the music, the lyrics, and the creative on each record is a clear, cohesive SCISSORFIGHT on what SCISSORFIGHT does.

Ironlung: Right. (Exhales) SCISSORFIGHT on what SCISSORFIGHT does. SCISSORFIGHT’s just doing what comes naturally; the thing that we have to do. We have to make music. Everyone needs…some people need an outlet like that and for us it just happens to be the opportunity to get together and jam and make music. That is the way it has always been. In some ways it’s a real selfish thing, as it is just us getting off on making music. As far as what comes with that, we never asked for anything from anyone. We have always done it on our own terms. We don’t owe anyone anything, we have never asked for anything and we could give a fuck about anything else that may come with that.

RealiD: Is SCISSORFIGHT one person’s vision? I have read the bio how you came together but there seems to be continuity between the lyrics, the art, the creative, the music, that even the most well thought out plan could not achieve.

Ironlung: I think it was really just us, being ourselves, and what comes out of us just being different from everything else. What we were doing. Having the lyrical aspect, in combination with real heavy music that had a real punk attitude about a lot of things. We were doing our own thing. The inception of the band was very spontaneous. I got introduced to those guys and I thought I was doing an audition or something and I had never been in a band. And they were like, “ oh no, your doing it.” We wrote songs that first jam and that was it. That energy has always been there.

RealiD: Prior to that did you have any outlet like this at all?

Ironlung: No

RealiD: And joining and singing for a band is nothing you had been thinking about doing?

Ironlung: NO, NO, No, No. That’s one of the cool things about it. I don’t think people realize there is never really an invitation to do something like that. People don’t realize they have the ability to do all kinds of things that are expressive and that are overall extremely healthy for you to do. Any form of artistic expression is very cathartic. All the stuff that came with it…………it always just started out as something to do…………it was so real, and different, and empowering. It was a way to blow out the steam. Everything else that went with it, making records and all, just fell into what we were doing.

RealiD: I think you guys are a little more cerebral than you lead on to. I know you have a masters in American History and I have heard you are a very intelligent dude, and I am not trying to kiss ass here, but there is definitely something more cerebral going on with SCISSORFIGHT.

IRONLUNG: I think…. absolutely. I think it is possible to play really heavy aggressive music while at the same time having a real awareness of what you are doing and what goes into that. There’s ways to do………in a band, there’s ways to do things that everyone else is sort of doing or you can do things based on your own, and what you and your band get fucking off on.

RealiD: I just see some lyrics of SCISSORFIGHT, that taken matter of fact-ly, would be comical with any other band performing them, but with the FIGHT, it’s not.

Ironlung: I think it plays up a lot of absurdity as well a a lot of its very cryptic. A lot of its, like a lot of stuff, that just a small handful of people happen to know what those references are to and understand. A lot of it is like an inside joke. A lot of it is satirical. It’s based on its own autonomous sort of culture. You can lay something out and how people interpret it is not my responsibility. If you take something like linguistics or semiotics, you can play with all types of language and signs and symbols and things and have it have multiple interpretations and meanings. It’s a heavy outlet and it’s a heavy thing that you’re doing. It has to be somewhat cerebral.

RealiD: I feel like I know less about SCISSORFIGHT with each record instead of learning more.

IRONLUNG: Again I think it’s all part of challenging. Challenging what people…the way they are used to doing things. The way they are used to listening to music. Constantly making it a little more difficult to get across; a certain challenge to it... Each album, each creative step there, the creative process just allows you to have more “alright, what else can we do.” The evolution of the band is maintaining, this autonomous SCISSORFIGHT identity, as well as keeping people on their toes. As you said, it’s usually different from project to project. That’s evident of how your life experience has changed over the last 9 years; there has been a lot of changes.

RealiD: Let’s talk about the new EP, Potential New Agent for Unconventional Warfare.

Lung: PNAFUW is very different then the SCISSORFIGHT traditional recording process because we had played more shows in 2002 than the last few years combined. There was a need to stop touring, instead of just being out. The songs got written in one session. I have a tape of that. I wasn’t even there. None of the songs had been performed as a band, they just went in and spontaneously wrote the songs and a week later laid the tracks down. Then I went in on it and so with this there was a real spontaneity to the songs on the EP. And that’s a little bit different creative process for SCISSORFIGHT and different from what we had done in the past. And we won’t do that again, but it was a good sort of like, that kind of stuff is in the face of people who have a tendency to put to much energy in the wrong direction about doing music. We don’t get together all that often when we are not playing. We don’t live in the same area, so we don’t hang out, so when you get together you make music. PNAFUW is just a by-product of that, honing it on that spontaneous energy that’s always there. In that way it’s very different. Inevitably the stuff that I have been working on for my thesis works it’s way in. The title is a reference to the CIA’s title for LSD, for their file, when they were doing experiments in the 1950’s.

RealiD: So you just recently completed your Masters and Thesis?

Lung: Just wrapping it up. It’s been a kick ass experience, really interesting stuff. At some point I had this urge to go back to school and it turned out to be good timing. The stuff I did in grad-school was definitely conducive to, and worked its way into, what SCISSORFIGHT does and what I do lyrically. In that way it was influential and a good experience.

RealiD: Is the thesis your working on state-able?

Lung: It’s basically the de-programming of American ideology. It’s an examination of case studies in LSD culture, the influence of LSD on the artist, and then in turn, the influence on popular culture. It’s such an interesting topic and I got turned on to so many interesting things. It’s been a really cool experience.

RealiD: Would you consider SF a political band?

IronLung: I would say definitely in an anarchistic way, in sort of a radical way, a subversive way. Absolutely, yes! I don’t think we have been overly blatant about it necessarily. Political in a sort of ‘who gives a fuck’ kind of way or sort of like, ‘fuck you and fuck the man’ basically.

RealiD: I am going to blast few words at you and I would love you to hit me back with whatever comes to mind…Marijuana
IRONLUNG: Mind Motivational.

RealiD: LSD.

IRONLUNG: The ability to transcend day-to-day reality as a means to open up the door of perception; to clean out the pipes.

RealiD: Drinking.

IRONLUNG: Drinking. A lot of… ummmmm……… still a lot of boozing…in the past… not so much anymore. That’s something that comes with having a good time. A lot of what SCISSORFIGHT, I think, is about fucking having a good fucking time. Drinking, I think if you can stay on top of it, it can be a pretty funny thing.

RealiD: Fighting.

IRONLUNG: Fighting is the most primal form of communication.

RealiD: The hunting imagery on some of the records, the earlier records; are you guys big hunters? Avid hunters?

IRONLUNG: No. No. A lot of that stuff is a gimmick sort of, metaphorical, sort of. One of the things we always used to get a crack out of was when people would ask us about that was, “no, we don’t hunt animals, but we do hunt humans.” There is something primal about the whole concept of hunting and survival. It’s a Jungian archetype (meaning tapping into the collective unconscious). Hunting and living demands a harmonious understanding where you are at amongst nature.

RealiD: What is it the beginning of 1893?

IRONLUNG: Oh Yeah. That was another thing that we sort of got into. This goes along with hunting. There is something that always struck me as a bizarre concept about trudging around and chasing something down and killing it. Even more so that you could go hunt these wild boar, this big thing, this big 400 pound animal that could turn around and mall you. 1893 is the year that they first brought European Boar over to America, other than the Russian Boar, that had been in California for a while. In 1893 they brought a big group of them to New Hampshire. So this was a NH reference as well as a weird boar hunting culture. The little line at the beginning of the song is from some hunting video, where these guys have their bow and arrow, and they’re kind of creeping up on this thing, and they’re like 20 feet from it, and they stick their arrow in. I think he says,” my first Gray Ghost maybe?”

RealiD: Great Ghost?

IRONLUNG: Gray Ghost.

RealiD: What Does That Mean?

IRONLUNG: That’s their name for it. A Gray Ghost is reference to the Peccary or Havalina, which is a southwestern indigenous wild pig, not a wild boar from Europe.

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RealiD: OK then. Clutch experience and you hit England recently.

IRONLUNG: We headlined the tour in England and the shows in Europe and that was amazing! Huge response……… much better than we expected. We had had a record out for a year over there and generated a lot of good publicity, a lot of good press. It was quite a surprise that it was so well received. The vibe was really great. Big crowds every night. Really enthusiastic people who were into and digging what we do. We will definitely be going back there soon. Then we got back and jumped on the Clutch tour. We had played with them in the past a bunch of times, but anytime you get on something like that, they are just great guys, playing in front of huge crowds every night; the vibe was just great too.

RealiD: What’s the practice like?

IRONLUNG: We meet in Boston. We don’t meet…(laughs). It’s funny you say that, we don’t really have a relationship, we don’t practice, I don’t know how to say this, but last year I would say we probably got together a handful of times. We don’t really have that thing whereas most bands get together and practice a few times a week and do all that kind of group stuff, we never really had too much of that. If we get together it’s usually to write.

RealiD: Writing doesn’t seem to be a problem for SCISSORFIGHT.

IRONLUNG: No. If anything the distance allows for the maximum potential of energy when you hit the stage and when you actually do get together and you are working creatively. We are less traditional in that respect. One of my theories about art and one of the things that I am passionate about is that our society is set up, it’s so systematic and there is so many regulations and rules. There is so many, we are constantly fed, certain signs and symbols, and in some ways, the way we process information; it’s very set up. Everything is very set up and in some ways restrictive. Where that doesn’t apply? Is with art. With art there are no rules. There are no rules, creatively. When you are going to lay down tracks, writing, performing, this interview right now, it’s all still a part of the same thing, it’s art and there are no rules. And there are not many aspects of our society that allow us that much freedom. That’s one of the things that is not lost on me.

RealiD: How about this, as you touch on something I talk with this dude about all the time. How about we repress people artistically so when it comes out finally, it’s that much stronger.

LUNG: I believe very strongly, that art is expressive and if you’re not given a set of rules, or “hey this is how you use this and this is what you paint on,” technique and all those other things, to me, get in the way of the actual expression. I am not burdened. I don’t know how to sing or understand to many musical concepts therefore; I am not burdened by that. I am not trapped. I am not held down. The guys in SCISSORFIGHT are all self-taught. They have a different approach to what they do musically; they are extremely confident and they fucking totally kick-ass, but the majority of the reason they kick-ass is because of their passion for their art over any sort of technical knowledge.

RealiD: Well said. Anything I haven’t asked that you get annoyed that interviews never seem to touch on?

RealiD: IRONLUNG: No, I really appreciate your line of questioning as you seem to have an appreciation or at the very least an understanding of what we’re about and that I dig. I like being able to have an interview where it’s like a conversation more than anything.

RealiD: In closing what is it about the FIGHT?

IRONLUNG: Just chemistry man. Just being in the right place, being with the right people. With the right attitude about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. We have been doing this now, what, like 8 or 9 years, which is something. It’s never strayed from the essence that is the SCISSORFIGHT esthetic, which is about having a good time.

LOOK FOR SCISSORFIGHT TO DO PLENTY OF TOURING IN 2003, PROBABLY AN OUTING IN THE SPRING, THE SUMMER, AND THE FALL.