Scrawlshop is currently the longest running metal/hardcore zine
locally. What keeps it going?
The only thing that makes it long running is that I started it back in
late 1996 (#0) but it was never released regularly after the first 3
issues. I used to put out thinner issues 3 times a year until my studies
back then and later, jobs took most of my time. Nowadays I'd like to put
out an issue a year but make it 50 or 60 pages as well as add to the
online version and I have to be in the mood to do the collages and stuff.
If you have the older issues they are way more fucked up than the last 2
issues I put out!
What’s your main objective in doing this zine?
It started out as an experiment, but it's still the same as it always have
been, my love for metal, and writing crap. And also the negative feedback
from people who hate the zine because I review/interview bands that aren't
100% metal, and my crappy style of writing and artwork, as long as there
are people who hate the zine, I will continue putting it out to piss ‘em
off even more! haha
When and how did Scrawlshop begin?
Back in late 1996 I was getting a lot of great zines and I told myself I
can do one, but with a different approach, I'll interview and review
whatever I want and write whatever I want. The first 3 issues are the
total suckage, I was just learning how to do a zine back then. It all went
downhill from that point, hehe...
Your contributors seem to come and go as they please. Does it affect
your zine in anyway?
Nah, it's ok, they don't have to follow any skeds, mainly because
everyone's busy with jobs, school and whatnot. If they can't contribute
this issue, they will next time, because I'll do most of it by myself
anyway. It’s good to have friends contributing though, because they offer
different perspectives and different styles of writing.
Do you have a certain criteria for contributors?
No, it's all freeform. If you want to contribute, just go ahead and send
it, we are not getting any money off it though so that's the problem haha
so don't expect $$. There was one time I got a buncha shitty columns about
preachy straightedge propaganda and other crap from this one dude asking
to be printed. I have no problems about straightedge but I didn't include
it because I want people to think for themselves.
"Shoot the Shit" is my favorite section of your zine. How long was
this insanity been into your zine? What’s your main purpose of sharing it
to us?
Since the first issue. Nothing special really, I just want to write
honest, stupid everyday shit, a lot of zines just write some of the most
preachy shit or write so politically correct. I'm no good at politics or
anything I am clueless when it comes to that shit. So I write about stuff
I know, I write stupid experiences that hopefully most readers will relate
to. Life here in this shitty country is totally fucked up I'm trying to
take the humor out of all that bullshit so when people read it they can
hopefully relate and that you're not alone in feeling like shit. Most of
the readers are stoners, oldskool skaters, punks, hessians and open minded
metalheads. I am not going to write any more of the emo bullshit I did on
issue#9 though that's the last you'll see of that garbage, haha.
What’s the most fucked up thing that’s ever happened to you that you
did not include in shoot the shit?
There are some which are women related and like I said you will not see
anymore of that shit again! It was just an experiment to get it out of my
system. More fucked up shit next issue (hopefully).
You’re still very much into the art of cut and paste, something
that’s slowly dying in our digital world. What motivates you to continue
this art?
I'm very much against the grain when it comes to the whole look of the
zine, the writing and the crappy artwork must always go hand in hand.
Actually the last issue looks "cleaner" than the past issues. every other
zine here is already laid out digitally and looking really clean and
organized, and the thoughts and writings organized, I want mine to be
different, to have it's own personality, hence, the garbage layouts
haha.
I even layouted a lot of stuff on issues 7, 8, 9 with Corel and Pagemaker
and other progs, and also one of my friends who contribute to the zine,
Fletcher, always designs his own pages digitally, but I eventually get
sick of my slick layouts and come back to my old style because it's more
freeform and you have no rules and boundaries.
Aside from delays of releasing every issue what other shits do you
normally encounter with your zine?
Nothing really, I know a lot of people hate it though, but mostly it's
just the true elite kvlt dudes who do not approve when stuff such as norah
jones or fiona apple pop up on the zine, and sometimes when I do a bad
review of a shitty band who wants to kill me.
How long do you think Scrawlshop will go?
As long as I still want to write, do crap art and as long as there are
still great bands (especially locally) I want to review and interview it
will go on, even if it's unregular.
You’re very open when it comes to your choice of musical genres but
what particular genre keeps you going and why?
All kinds of metal, and even if it's not metal, if it's good and I like it
I want it in the f'n zine. my favorite though are bands who have a rawer
edge when it comes to the sound and delivery, it's more upfront and
honest. raw black metal, sludge, oldschool death metal, grind, all that
shit is good... I can listen to something like Saves the Day and then
Immolation or Boris or whatever. I also like a lot of crap I'd rather not
mention here, he he...
Moving to your other project, Isildur recently resurfaced from its
shallow grave. What’s to be expected from this reunion?
It's an old side project from 2 years ago, Yek and Reign and Alvin 2 years
ago, we only play when Alvin Rainblood is not in tyhe US. Those guys rule.
It's always been a band we do for fun we're totally into fast, noisy black
metal, Marduk style, Marduk covers. Yek always plays faster live and
recently I've switched from playing with a pick to using my fingers on the
bass, so it is kind of hard, plus when we cover Marduk songs the bass is
f'n difficult, B. War is a fucking demon and it's hard trying to get into
his style of playing, haha.
Has the band accomplished anything prior to the bands slumber?
Nah, when Alvin is in the States we don't play, when he's here though we
grab all the chances to play and make the most out of his stay here. We
just played in Iloilo sponsored by Jhan and Deadstring Records with a
bunch of great Visayas bands, mad props to Jhan and Clytie!
Is the proposed demo already been recorded? Will you tell us more
about it?
Not yet but hopefully sometime this year, we don't have concrete plans yet
plus Reign and Yek have their main bands.
How would you describe Isildur’s brand of metal?
Really fast, noisy, trebly black metal. Yek plays faster and harder live,
haha. he's like the bastard son of Fredrik Andersson! Marduk covers
What about the ideology that’s behind this band?
You have to ask Alvin about this.
Aside from the demo and gigs, what else does Isildur wanted to
accomplish?
Hopefully just play more shows.
What’s gonna happen once Alvin left for the states once again?
We cannot play when Alvin is not around, nobody can replace that
motherfucker, he is evil incarnate, the Satan spawn! Seriously, Alvin is
just one, he has no replacement, no subsitute.
You have 3 other bands, Decadencia, AOD and just recently Religious
Nightmare. Tell us a bit about each of them.
Decadencia is like asking a bunch of degenerate stoners/sludge kids to
play oldschool death metal with tons of feedback with ultra low
unorganized vocals.
AxOxDx is a mix of hardcore/crust/punk with pissed off vocals anyone can
play our stuff it's so easy and anti technical, but it's f'n difficult
coming up with those ugly trebly crust riffs.
Religious nightmare is a crust/grind side project with Gil of Loss of
Control.
AOD is basically Cavite-based. How did you hooked up with them?
Darwin is an old friend of mine back in school, and he has been singing
and playing in punk, hardcore and powerviolence bands (most prominently
Backfist) for years now. he asked me in late 2002 to play guitars for age
of decomposition and I joined the minute he told me about it. even though
we sometimes miss a few shows because of busy skeds, we always want to
play. I love AOD and the whole punk feel of everything in it, right down
to recording a demo barely after a coupla weeks of forming. we're planning
to record a new demo/EP this year.
Traveling to Cavite for rehearsal must be a real challenge for
you mainly due to fucked up traffic. Don’t you get sick of it?
Haha, yes but I love those motherfuckers. When I do have time I go out and
join them in Cavite, jam on some songs and hang out because we don't get
to see each other often, Darwin works, I work, our drummer goes to school
and our bassist Chris is a painter/artist so we are always pressed for
time.
The traffic sucks yes, the dude with the bigger problem has to be
our vocalist in Decadencia who lives in Alfonso, Cavite and must get his
ass to QC for a gig or a jam, haha.
Tell us about the demo that you recorded for a
compilation.
We recorded those songs after our second rehearsal. It was really cool
recording there at Pipeline, and hanging out with great bands such as
Feud, Youth for Crust and Backfist, three notorious motherfuckers in the
punk scene.
Has AOD ever lined up on metal gigs yet? How does the crowd react
to them compared to the hardcore crowd on which the band is already
familiar?
Nah not yet but I hope we can get some shows in metal bills soon. The
metalheads at punk shows seem to not hate us, cause they're usually
getting drunk and slamming (sometimes fighting) particularly in a coupla
punk gigs in cavite. I'm glad they don't throw shit at us when we're
playing, especially the skinhead dudes.
On the contrary Decadencia was more of a metal oriented band when
it comes to gigs. How do hardcore crowd react to Decadencia’s music then?
We haven't played at hardcore gigs yet with decadencia, but the few times
we played like last year at Sickfest 3 the crowd was bigger and they were
all eyes and observant which kind of made me nervous, because most bands
who play there the kids are getting crazy and they're f'n loud. when we
started to play they were all just standing, watching motionless, just
looking intently with confused eyes and then late confused applause, maybe
they were just stoned! our vocalist has that shit on video.
We also played at Disnormal Nite one time and we played sober, right after
me and Albert played in RN. All of us (except our vocalist) always goes
into rehearsal or a gig totally stoned, and we played sober that night and
for some stupid reason we screwed up one part of our last song, haha. but
it was a cool experience playing there though, thanx and mad props to Eric
and Yagi of Cog!
Have you ever played some insanely slow yet devastatingly heavy
sludge live? How does the crowd react to it?
we always play our instrumental songs slower than usual and more feedback
drenced - unfortunately nobody gets that vibe. Remember the first time you
heard Eyehategod and their sickening, tortorous feedback... that's what
we're shooting for, I am a big fan of that band and proud to say that
they're one of our main influences. it's a tribute to them. Unfortunately
most people here in the philies aren't into sludge, they usually just
stand around looking weird at us especially with the first jam song we
always play live, before our vocalist steps up and does the vocals for our
2nd song. the people who do watch us are confused everytime we play,
mainly because there are no catchy hooks to hang onto and it all sounds
weird and our vocalist has this really weird, mammoth inhuman vocal style
that just doesn't sound right, haha.
Do you know of any other sludge band in our local scene?
I don't know, sludge is very much ignored here in the phillies except for
us and a very few friends who love that shit. there are prolly a few
sludge bands here, I would like to hear em if they have a demo out. there
are prolly some good bands out there. other bands have a few sludge/stoner
elements in them though and that's good.
We’ve once discussed the idea of Decadencia bastardizing classic
rock song. Has it already happened?
we've been talking about doing an old classic rock song (just like what
you and I talked about once) and twisting it around to our sound, but we
don't have one we've decided on yet. It must be something obscure or
unpopular or something. sludgecore stoner doom, stoner rock, that real
root of those genres can always be traced to the blues, rock and roll and
southern rock, just read interviews with Eyehategod and New Orleans metal
bands. It'd be interesting to cover an old song by a bunch of potheads and
then remake it the sludge/grind way also by a bunch of potheads! haha.
What other ideas do you have for Decadencia?
It will always be influenced by sludgecore and oldschool primitive
death metal. That way, there would be no band crazy enough to do the same
experiment like us. Nah, seriously I want Decadencia to have a cool new
demo and hopefully just an EP and no more hassles with drummers and more
gigs would make us all happy.
Now to your newest project, Religious Nightmare. Will you tell us
how this band got started?<
Right back in mid 2003 we were having drummer and vocalist problems for
Decadencia (a band cursed for their uhh, "sins" the name and the curse is
kind of self explanatory), so Albert asked an old friend of his, Gil if he
knows anybody who could session for a few gigs, Gil didn't like
decadencia's style, but mentioned to Albert that he wanted to form a
side project. Just simple crusty hardcore punk with some grind. We tried
jamming on a few riffs we had and it just clicked.
Gil let me listened to some of your roughly recorded songs and I
say it kills. When do you think the actual demo will come out?
Thanks man, we're still trying to get the best mix on those songs though.
we did the 2nd demo late last year and we're planning them out for an ep
soon with at least ten songs. It's out you can listen to them here:
http://www.soundclick.com/religiousnightmare. We will also have guest
vocalists on the EP, kinda like what they're doing on hiphop albums, ya
know like Chingy with Snoop Dogg and Ludacris (hehe). Allan of LoC will be
in it, as well as Ronald of KNK and a few others.
How many songs have you written so far for RN and what are the
songs about?
We've got 8 songs now, each clocking in no more than 2,3 minutes. I write
most of the lyrics but everyone works and contributes together when it
comes to ideas, phrasings, riffs. me and albert are in charge of how the
riffs go and which ones to use, while Gil structures them and arranges the
songs when we jam. most of my lyrics are about the shit that pisses us
off, venting of my frustrations and sometimes some personal crap.
Are you guys planning to remain 3-piece all the way?
Yes, we'll remain as a 3 piece. it was Gil's idea to be a three piece, to
give everything perfect balance with the most minimum line-up, but we have
guest vocalists on special occasions, especially live. When we are playing
a bill with Gil's main band, Loss of Control, Allan does guest vocals for
our last song and the result is always fucking killer. LOC rules and he
just goes onstage and destroys with his f'n killer vocals, because he can!
Do you ever feel pressured technically as a guitarist and
vocalist knowing that you have one of the best drummer in the local
scene?
Yes, man, definitely, most especially during the first rehearsals, I'm
just an average bass player so when Albert and Gil wanted me to do the
vocals and bass it was a challenge since I have never done vocals yet
while playing, and then play with somebody like Gil you just can't play
sloppy with him, they pushed me to play fast and tight.
I'm a li'l better now but I'm still working on improving, now I know how it is f'n difficult with bass/vox dudes! Gil plays faster and you have to keep up with him, and that's the only direction you're going. it's like a speeding train that's not stopping and you're holding on to the handlebars at the rear and it feels like anytime you're going to slip out of grip. I have to warm up my hands before we play hehe
What’s the most insane thing that you have ever done in this
band?
None too wild yet, but we love drinking red horse + extra joss + weed. and
playing unsober has taken us to gigs where we are literally lost onstage,
everything's a blur and we're playing faster and when Allan does guest
vocals for the last song everything is f'n chaotic. A coupla times people
have told us we were too loud!
Any fucked up story with Religious Nightmare?
We played in Rock Radio Alabang and we have the usual ritual of drinking
red horse with extra joss and smoking weed. When we were onstage we
turned everything up real loud to the point that the amps were on full and
Gil was just killing the skins. The house tech was pissed off and came up
to us and told us twice to both turn down, but we were so out of it we
continuously ignored him and just continued playing.
What other plans do you have for RN?
Hopefully record a rough EP this year and play shows when we have time.
write more songs. We are doomed in the elections in 2004!
What’s your take on the current metal and hardcore scene?
It has become stronger this year, as long as it continues the rate it's goin with a slow and steady pace it will be big. The Bigger Metal bands all have their releases, more bands with demos /EP's/full lengths, they don't have to be metal, pop punk, shoegazer or whatever - just to be themselves, and they don't have to be on NU107.
People like Sam and Gani of LOC are organizing ESBK every month for the underground scene, Yagi and Eric of Cog for the Disnormal Nite series and the many underground punk and hardcore shows by MAIM and Take4, etc., outside manila it's all going down for the underground scene. I love it and I hope it crushes the trends haha. what I don't like is all the shit talking that goes onstage, ticket selling and taking advantage of bands (which has fortunately dwindled recently) also now NU107 is broadcasting metal, that's really fucked up, where were they when metal was down in the pits? it's kind of weird that NU107's playing metal.
What’s your opinion on the Cavite hardcore scene?
There are a lot of great bands in there. the newest one is Nuclear
Termuloid Mike the AOD drummer plays bass for them and includes the dudes
from Verum X and Youth for Crust. don't forget Batangas, Felix' new band
Sauna destroys! awesome band, cool dudes. check out the gigs there if you
have time, watch out for pogoing punks and drunk skins.
There is a handful grind/crust and powerviolence bands from
Cavite that I think would be killer if they could play on metal gigs. Why
do you think these bands stay stuck in one particular scene only?
They play in a few metal club shows but mostly they play in punk shows,
the turnout is almost always good though and mostly they don't have
contacts yet so they can't get hooked up for metal shows. Most of their
peers and closest friends all hang out in punk/hardcore shows too. It's
just that they play more in those gigs but if given the chance they'll
also play in metal shows.
What's cool is that a lot of metal bands play everywhere, including hardcore punk shows, so they're playing to newer audiences and making hook ups which is beneficial for everybody.
I think powerviolence and grind/crust is here to break the
barrier between metal and hardcore. What’s your take on that?
They should join forces with all the metal bands (and other non metal
bands) here in Manila/QC and start an uprising against shitty music coming
out of NU107 and other commercial crap. We should all unite and network
and help each other out doesn't matter which scene you're coming from.
I’m sure you’re already sick of this interview so I have to end
now. Final words are yours. Thanx Rallye.
Nah, Thank You for letting me ramble, man. Good luck with Tripalium and
all the best to your family. Peace out.
(Rallye's photo was used without permission from this site:http://www.myspace.com/rubysoho_illiterati/blog)
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