B.G.K.
Interview from Maximumrocknroll #43, December 1986
B.G.K. is, in my opinion, one of the few long-lasting punk bands that have strived to maintain their integrity, idealism, and commitment over a period of time. Hailing from Holland, they recently spent several months on tour across the U.S., and Ruth and Tim sat down with them upon its completion to see how B.G.K. sees the changes within punk from two years ago (their first U.S. tour) to today. All the musicians took part (Tony, guitar; Marcel, drums; Rene, vocals; Mathijs, bass), as well as Martin and Wouter (who are equals in the band, despite the fact that they are non-musical members-a refreshing concept). The conversation begins:
Tony: It seems that the U.S. punk scene has become much less of an underground thing than 2 years ago and is moving towards mainstream rock and roll. In Europe, the underground punk scene has consolidated itself, in our eyes. Many bands in the U.S. are only concerned with their "own thing".
Wouter: The value of supporting each other, helping each other out, even if it is only for the sake of a healthy music, has almost vanished. The punk scene seems to be the most involved in consuming.
Martin: The word "punk rock" has no meaning anymore, but for us it still stands for something.
Wouter: In Europe, it's more a matter of groups of people setting up shows, like collectives. It's not just one promoter who has to do all the work on his/her own, and, in turn, gets all the shit from people. In a lot of places we played, there was little appreciation for all their work- a much worse situation than 2 years ago.
Marcel: We've been carrying PA systems in and out of places, cleaning up parking lots after the gig, etc., to make the show happen. The promoter couldn't do it alone. We don't mind that, but it's a sign that there's no one else taking responsibility, someone who cares enough to put work into the scene.
Martin: One thing I noticed here is that people seem to drop out of the scene quickly. They're in it for 2 years, fade away, and hence not too many of the newcomers have a sense of what's going on, a continuity. In Europe, people get involved at age 17-18 and usually stay involved.
Tony: A lot of people just consume instead of trying to contribute. We feel a lot of bands are just parasitic; a band should contribute more than just it's own music.
Rene: People who do contribute are hardly ever in bands themselves; while we feel that this is the first thing a band should do.
Marcel: If you wanna play, you should help others our who play, set up shows for other bands. That's part of the reason why the alternative network in Europe could grow so fast.
Wouter: In the States, if one promoter gets sick of doing shows because of all the work or because they get strangled by all the guarantees and money losses, there will be no more shows in many cases-until a new "fool" is willing to stick his/her neck out. We don't want to sound too negative, as we did see a lot of people doing a real good job of promoting--too many too mention! It's amazing how just one person with a lot of enthusiasm for world hardcore can influence a whole scene, like the Raunch people in Salt Lake City. It makes that place a great place to play for foreign bands.
MRR: Why is the situation in Europe different?
Tony: The whole "independent" philosophy, the D-I-Y idea, is stronger there than in the U.S.
Marcel: The whole society is different-- not the basic things, but the way things work out. I think there's more political/social awareness, solidarity among people. This is declining there too, but the U.S. has much more of a "every man for himself" tradition, maybe ever since the "pioneers". There is no such thing as a "punk scene"; it doesn't exist because there are so many people with so many different interpretations of what "punk" is. But in Europe, there's a lot more people coming from a leftist or anarchist perspective who are involved with punk.
Wouter: People are into punk there for more than just music and clothes. Quite a lot of punks are part of some loose-knit anarchist collectives, not only to organize shows but as a part of their lives--to demonstrate, to get out of mainstream society.We're a part of a group that sets up concerts and other cultural events in a squat (Emma). We see this as a small part of an alternative to mainstream competitive society. Cooperation instead of competition, and shared responsibility instead of hierarchy.
Marcel: The underground in Europe is not only there because people want it to be there, it is also fed by the lack of opportunities to sell out. There are no big promoters interested in hardcore, no major labels trying to make bands sign. If it was like in the U.S., the underground there wouldn't be as big as it is! A lot of bands would probably sell out.
Tony: Europe has no "rock and roll" tradition, no club circuit, no radio and magazines interested in punk. People were sort of forced to create their own network.
MRR: Is the situation in Amsterdam typical of all of Europe?
Marcel: A lot of concert places work this way, like the autonomous youth centers in Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Wouter: In most countries, you can't get away with running a concert place in a squat for a long period of time. But people always find different ways. Also, in the U.S., we found some great examples of this, like in Tallahassee. This was a place run by a big group of people, the building used by bands, for shows, theater performances, etc.
Marcel: The more people involved in running something, the better it works, I think. No one wants to ruin their own thing, shows whatever. People will try to protect their own thing.
MRR: Can you think of reasons why the punk in the U.S. has changed over the last 2 years?
Wouter: I can think of two main things: the influence of the metal crossover, and the older bands trying to sell out by becoming mainstream rock and roll acts. The metal thing definitely changed the attitude--basically, people just want to consume loud music and don't care about the values and ideas that hardcore (for us) originally had.
Marcel: This would include the independent aspect, the non-commercial attitude, etc. getting away from the traditional rock and roll approaches like the separation between audience and band. For us, it goes beyond that to include radical social/political ideas. It's not a "progression" to return to the sexist, sometimes racist, rock and roll attitudes that a huge part of the heavy metal scene embraces.
Tony: I think this "crossover" is an invention of the big music biz, of big labels trying to capitalize on the hardcore audience. Now, a lot of bands sound alike and all have at least one song called "Expect No Mercy!"
Marcel: The room for creativity, for experiments, is even smaller than it was before. The current hardcore scene is not too open-minded either, but there used to be more variety accepted, more room for individual fantasy. I don't see any attitudes or ideas from the hardcore scene influencing the metal scene, except that now finally some HM bands will be satisfied with some small label after looking for a major company for 10 years. I wouldn't wanna call it an improvement of the lyrical content of HM now that some bands found out that WW III might not be a whole lot of fun.
Tony: Slayer has a song on their new LP glorifying Herr Doktor Mengele. Some improvement!
Wouter: C.O.C. is, of course, an exception, but they have their roots in hardcore!
Marcel: The metal crowd in Europe behaves itself very well; they're well-conditioned like their parents, ha ha.
MRR: Can you make a living off the band?
Wouter: We support ourselves when we're on tour, which is enough. We don't want to raise prices of tickets, records, t-shirts, etc.. to make more money than you need to simply live. If we make more because we get more people at shows or sell more records, that's fine. But we don't want to make more compromises.
Tony: If you have complete control over your band and draw 1000 people each show, that's all right.
Rene: If you make more money than you need to simply live, it should be put back into the music scene--to put out records, zines, a hall, whatever.
MRR: Arguments for selling out are always: "We've been doing this for years, we are in debt, we have families, we are older now, we see no progress...."
Wouter: We never expected to live off the band when we're not touring. If you wanna live off the band all the time, in most cases you're over charging and sucking the scene of money. All these crybaby stories about being poor make me sick! Most bands can support themselves pretty easily when they're touring, or can come close.
Marcel: If you wanna live off the band, you should tour for at least 6-7 months each year, that is if you don't want to ask for too much money and play for too high door prices.
Rene: I don't want to tour 8-10 months a year 'cause there are other important things to do--helping other bands and the scene, working on alternative projects like anti-militaristic groups, squats, humanitarian organizations like A.N.C. etc., trying to create changes with other people in your own immediate environment.
Marcel: You'd lose contact with the "real world" and get wrapped up in your own little thing. You wouldn't know or feel what you're singing about any more.
MRR: How did the tour work out financially?
Wouter: Including airfare, $6 a day each for expenses, we lost $1000. We're willing to accept that rather than giving up our standards. We did compromise sometimes, like when we played the Metro in Chicago . This was a really shitty club, people were not allowed to bring in anti-klan flyers and political magazines. The bouncers were beating people up, etc. If we knew this before the show, we wouldn't have played. We turned down some shows with Motorhead and the Cro-Mags because we want to be selective about who we play with. We were offered a show at the Farm with DRI, Verbal Abuse, and Raw Power, but chose instead to do one with Frightwig, Rythm Pigs and Christ On Parade. We had some problems with some of the members of those bands--sexist attitudes--and didn't feel we could really communicate humanly in such an atmosphere as the bands might create. A few members of DRI and Verbal Abuse were upset at our decision, felt we were "too good" to play with them, and tried to fuck up our show. It ended up in a small fight and afterwards they beat up a friend of ours. In a sense, their actions proved to us that we made the right choice.
Marcel: We look at the attitude of a band, not solely the music. This is not only to have more impact, but also for our own personal fun. We like to be around people we can relate to. We'd rather not be around white chauvinist rock and roll performers. You most certainly don't enlarge the impact you have by playing with bands who state or conduct the complete opposite of what you're doing.
Mathijs: We got a bit away from the question.
Marcel: Right, back to economics. If we didn't have to buy plane tickets or equipment, we would have actually made money. We did 29 shows for $4-5, with only 4 shows of a higher door price. A lot of the bigger bands are just plain greedy. The Circle Jerks put into their contract a limit of $75 for opening bands on top of their own guarantee. Real supportive! Playing music is a from of communication, it shouldn't be a career or a business type of thing. If you want a career, get into insurance, banking or selling hot dogs. I think some bands should realize that because they're fucking over a lot of people.
MRR: What's more important in punk: they lyrics or the way you conduct yourself? Like with MDC for example, who write good lyrics....
Marcel: Though they may fluctuate somewhat in their standards, they still maintain a lot of those values and still have great lyrics. We don't blame MDC for not living up to those previous standards, but their 100 times better than most big bands, who never had any standards to begin with.
Wouter: If you don't live up to your standards, though, it makes your lyrics less valuable, I think.
Marcel: You also can't pretend to be a band with some social awareness and then play expensive shows in shitty clubs all the time. A band can write the coolest lyrics in the world, but if you behave like some sexist, homophobic, racist pig it's not gonna be worth much.
MRR: Do you think you're having a positive effect?
Marcel: We hope we have some effect. We talked to a lot of people, many of whom have changed us, had an effect on us, so maybe thing work the other way around too. I don't believe that music itself has much of an impact on it's own, only as a part of cultural expression, of a subculture with ideas, values, standards that are somehow opposing mainstream society.
Tony: Speaking of impact, the American bands that toured the alternative circuit in Europe seem to be a little different from a lot of other bands who haven't made it over.
Marcel: If they had the chance to meet people not like the DK's who were "protected" or "guided" by some sleazy promoter.
MRR: Did White Flag learn anything on their European tour?
Tiny: Not to come back! Ha ha!
Wouter: They got to know the people of the U.S. Embassies pretty well.
Marcel: For people who don't know what happened there, White Flag defended the bombing of Lybia on and off the stage. People in Germany started handing out flyers about this, demonstrated, made bomb threats, and White Flag ran to the Embassy for protection. But we do set up shows for "fun" bands like Fang, for example. We played with them, so I hope people don't misunderstand us by thinking we'll only play with or work for bands that are exactly like us.
MRR: So Artless can play at Emma?
Wouter: Yeah, if they have the guts!
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