Catharsis
CrimethInc.
Introduce Catharsis, CrimethInc,
and inside front. And what is your goal?
Is a collective made up of
people who , generally speaking want more freedom and creativity
in their lives . Anyone and everyone can be a part of it, it
includes whoever wants to help at any time. Catharsis is a band
some of us have been doing for the past 5½ years, and Inside
Front is one of the magazines we do. The focus of Inside Front is
to bring out the necessary connections between punk rock /
hardcore and other kinds of art and activism, while at the same
time chronicling and connecting on what is happening in HC across
the world.
Catharsis means purification,
does that mean that Catharsis is a drug free band or at least has
sympathies for a drug free lifestyle, or not?
Not everyone in Catharsis
is straight edge although I am (I guess I’ve been SXE for 10
years now) .For us, the main question is not what we don’t
do (drinking, smoking, etc.) but what we do with our
lives: are we just wasting them passively in some predictable way,
or are we chasing dreams, creating new ways of living and
experiencing? And so, for me the band name doesn’t just
means "purification", it’s about taking ourselves
and remaking ourselves (and the world) through art and other
kinds of resistance. It’s about taking the fragments of our
lives finding and a way to put them together …it’s
about finding a way to sing the world to people, if that makes
sense.
What does "Samsara"
mean?
According to Indian
beliefs (Hindu ideas, at least), "Nirvana" is the
condition of peace, of silence, of having no desires and offering
no resistance. "Samsara" is the opposite: it’s the
world of pain, of unfulfilled desire, of struggle. That is what this
world holds
For us and according to many religious traditions we are
supposed to reject that in favor of an afterlife. But we refuse to do that-
naming the record "Samsara" was an action to say we embrace this world,
our lives with all their chaos and difficulties, and that we will not pray instead
of "heaven" or "peace" or "surrender", but choose
to fight for our heaven here on earth-and even if we never get it, even if that
only brings us to suffering, we embrace that suffering as our own.
You don’t work, so what
do you do, besides the band, zine and label, in your spare time?
I’m much busier than
anyone I know who works. Right now keeping up a DIY mail-order,
booking shows, writing and practicing music, writing, publishing,
and distributing zines and records, answering mail .All this
takes up more time than you could imagine. But when I’m not
working on that, I like to read (I love to sit in libraries going
trough books), travel and talk with my friends, keep up with
underground art and movies, do practical activism (like Food Not
Bombs, Critical Mass, Reclaim The Streets, other projects), take
long walks.
You aren’t really into
animal rights, are you?
I’m absolutely
interested in animal rights, which must be a part of our
revolution. But the issue cannot be seen by itself. Animals are
not just exploited because people are cruel, and "shopping
vegan" will not solve the problem by itself. Capitalism
rewards people for exploitation (whoever is willing to cause the
most damage for profit ends up with the most money and power) so
to end
Animal and earth
exploitation, as well as human exploitation we must stop shopping
completely, we must work to destroy all corporations and create a
world where people can share rather than competing till death.
What do you think of the
animal liberation front setting hamburger restaurants and
slaughterhouses on fire?
I’m happy when I see
things like that happen but history has shown that terrorism is
often not an effective way to work towards change, so here
we concentrate on more unexpected ways to get attention and
educate people. We only blow things up when we’re sure it’s
the most effective solution.
You seem to have atheistic
and anarchistic feelings, which experiences in your life have led
to those feelings?
You’re right that my
anarchistic and atheistic feelings are connected: for me the
important question is not whether there is a god, but why
I must bow down to one if there is…I believe that you must
find your values and destiny within yourself no matter whet. For
me that has been clear since I was very young .I never
experienced anything that suggested the existence of a "higher
power", anyway, although I think there are plenty of
beautiful "holy" things here in this world .As
for my anarchism, it has been reinforced more and more by seeing
(in punk rock, for example) how much happier people are and how
much better they work together without authorities –when all
are equal and supportive.
You are always talking about
a revolution; do you actually think that can unleash a revolution?
Remember, for us "revolution"
is not a political/military conflict, but a moment of
transformation (from slavery to freedom from despair to hope,
from boredom to joy)
That can happen in a
nation or a single person. Both are just as important, although
each is needed for the other to happen, ultimately. I think
CrimethInc. Has helped in hundred (maybe thousand) of "personal
revolutions", thus bringing closer the day of world
revolution, we hope .Is that possible? It better be!
You’re a very fluent
person when it comes on topics like TV, revolution, work, …Why
don’t you go into politics?
Political office (senator,
mayor, etc.) in the USA is a place in which you are prevented
from creating real change –the only results your
efforts can have serve to keep the system running the same as
always. It seems to me that one of the reasons nothing has
changed here is that wherever someone wants to change something,
they go into politics, and thus are wasted just keeping the
system running. What if nobody ran for president? So we work from
outside, creating a society as we slowly destroy the old one.
What comes up in your mind
when you hear the name Belgium?
I think of my friends
there (Bruno, Lieve, Robby, many others) …I think of
travelling there with our band, of how friendly so many people
are there .I think of how the vort’n vis prints it’s
own currency for bands playing there, that’s really cool! I
think of all the wars in Europe that have been fought on Belgian
soil, all the destruction and death there. I also think of the
Belgian hardcore scene, how I am afraid of it coming to resemble
the commercial fashion-conscions USA scene.
The last month, we got a lot
of health problems, here in Belgium. Our chickens were fed with
dioxin poisoned nutrition, so every product, produced from
animals or diary products (like cheese, butter…) may not
been sold anymore, and all the Coca-Cola products from Belgium
were taken off the market (some virus in it?). Did you know this
already and which impact has it on you and your view on Belgium?
Something that is
interesting to me is how events like that can have a greater
impact in smaller nations like Belgium .In the USA, such an event
would be local news, and so one would think much about it, but in
the Belgium were something like that happens everyone would think
about it .For that reason it might be possible that social change
and transformation could happen more easily in a place such as
Belgium, that in the USA, which is so bloated and apathetic that
it seems nothing will ever happen.
Any further releases, a tour
(in Europe), something?
We’ve recorded a new
record; we’re now trying to borrow the money to release it.
It should be out by the
end of august .We just toured the USA, we plan to tour Europe
this October for 3 months (hopefully …it seems our friend
who books our tour has fucked this up…) and then we will
tour South America .One of our ideas for our next project is to
join with our friends’ band Zegota and form a hardcore
orchestra. That should be unexpected enough to cause some trouble
!!!
Thanxxx for the interview
Thank you for the
interview. If anyone wants to write with us for information or to
communicate, contact:
CrimethInc. Workers’
Collective
2695 Rangewood Drive
Atlanta, GA 30345 USA.
Interview by Trix and king One