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New album is due for release soon,
what’s it called, who's releasing it etc...?
Pete: It’s called ‘When Duty Calls’ and will be
released by Pure Impact around Christmas time. (March 5th 2005.... will
be out in April normally, just got the artwork from the band. Pure Impact)
Ian: It’s called ‘Pure Impact’ and will be released
by When Duty Calls probably around Easter 2008.
Pete: Although we were gonna call it ‘Saxons on a bad day!’
for reasons we could never divulge!
Can we expect a similar sound or will
it more metal, less metal, more something else?
Pete: The sound pretty much follows on from our latest offerings
such as ‘The Sweeney’, there’s probably a little too much
metal influence for the Oi! purists, but there ya go, ya can’t please
everybody! There’s a few things on the new album that we’d never
have dared try a few years back, like the cover we did of the Madness
song ‘Bed & Breakfast Man’ and the two or three hundred
year old folk song we’ve done, but we’ve got to the stage after
eight years where we like to try shit, push the bounds if you like.
Ian: There’s a mixture of stuff on the album, opens with a
good ole Oi! Song though!
Pete: I’d be more inclined to call it Skinhead Rock! Bloik!
Whizzer & Chips or Beano?
Ian: I used to get both of them. The Beano is in a league of it’s
own though – or at least it used to be until I discovered 2000AD.
Pete: Ah, now it’s all starting to make sense!
You guys have a fair following about
the place, including here. Any plans to tour with the new album?
Pete: Yeah, if we can be arsed to get it together. We’re
a useless bunch of lazy bastards where the band is concerned, we’re
all far happier getting pissed in the crowd, watching some other band
doing all the hard work, but there’re a lot of promoters waiting
for us to get knocked back into some kind of gigging shape, so I spose
we ought to at least go and have a few beers and talk about it! I mean
it wouldn’t hurt would it!
Ian: A tour?? Have you lost your marbles?? It would kill me! The
odd gig here and there is ok, maybe a couple over a weekend but then I’d
need a month off to recover.
Pete: Yeah Ian’s Mic case is pretty damned heavy ya know!
Do you prefer playing bigger gigs
with millions of screaming girls, or just small intimate gigs?
Pete: We prefer playing NO gigs! We’re lazy bastards!
Ian: I prefer small gigs, the atmosphere is better. Oi! Just don’t
seem real on a big stage. I would prefer to play to 50 like minded skins
than 350 anarchists and junkies anyhow.
Pete: Yeah any day of the week, although having said that, playing
to two-thousand like-minded screaming girls might be alright I spose!
Flat caps and tank-tops? What’s
that all about?
Ian: Dunno! Ask the people than iron creases in their Levis. Now
where’s me Fred Perry cardigan…
Pete, your a bit of a 'Master and Commander' fan, is it the boats
and blood and guts or just Russell Crowe?
Pete: Ah Fiona me ole muckerette, you just can’t stop talking
about this film can ya, I told ya you’d love it! For me it’s
a history thing! I love all things historical.
Ian: It was an average flick, hugely over rated like most other
films today. It was no Star Wars that’s for sure!
Pete: Oh God here we go! Zzzzzzzzzzz!
Ian: Sith or Jedi?
Pete: ????
Ian: Sith. It goes without saying.
Pete: ok then!
What got you into the skinhead/punk/oi!
scene? Anything in particular?
Pete: Nothing, I’m not into it at all!
Ian: I don’t remember.
Pete: Seeing the original skins knocking around my housing estate
in London when I was a nipper was the start of it for me.
Ian: Well I was into 77 Punk stuff to be honest, then one day my
brother bought home Bltiz’ ‘All Out Attack’ EP and that
was that.
What’s the one big gripe you have
with life at the moment?
Pete: Ian, Mark & John!
Pete: And Swiss refs!
Pete: And English footballers!
Ian: Waiting for our new stuff to be released always pisses me
off. 7 or 8 months after we record it!
Do the hills really have eyes?
Ian: Yes.
Pete: Yes.
You are an internet savvy band. Do
you reckon the internet has been good or bad for the 'scene' ?
Pete: Good and bad!
Ian: Well it’s gotten us 90% of our gigs and record deals.
Made us plenty of enemies too!
If you could pretend you were someone
else for the day, who would you be?
Pete: Tony Blair! I’d have the Tower of London bursting at
the fucking seems! The old chopping block on Tower Hill would have a queue
as long as a Russian bread-queue!
Ian: Monkey Gibbon.
Pete: Or Michael Douglas for obvious reasons, although I’d
soon put the Welsh slapper in her place! SERVANTS? WHAAAAT? Get aaht into
that kitchen ya Welsh bint and wash up like a real woman ya lazy Welsh
dog… Iznit look yew and all that lark!
When is Mark gonna stop wasting his
time with that ‘Combat 84’ tribute band he’s in?
Pete: You tell us! We keep telling him he’s flogging a dead
horse but he won’t listen!
Ian: And when’s he gonna stop buying pervy stuff on eBay?
Warwick Castle or Stonehenge?
Pete: Hmm, it’s a toughie! Warwick Castle for sheer awesome
beauty, but the tour needs working on, those headphone things are crap!
Ian: The Henge – before they put a fence around it.
Pete: Mind you, me and her-indoors have just done Dover Castle
and that was the bollocks!
Ian: Well best you get down to Winchester too then.
Pete: We’ll maybe I will!
Proudest moment with Retaliator
Pete: Backing singing on Haggis’s Johnny Cash cover ‘Long
Black Veil’. The tears are welling just thinking about it! “She
Wizzits my grave in a long black weil!” Class! So very very proud!
Ian: Yeah, the whole Norway thing was great.
Pete: Seriously, there’s been loads for me, we’ve shared
a bill with so many great bands, but the first time I heard the crowd
chanting our name as we left the stage at a gig in Belgium was certainly
a good moment.
Ian: And we got an encore at ‘Holidays in the Sun’ fucking
hell! That’s kind of sad really!
Best book ever written
Pete: The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell
Ian: The Monkey Gibbon Chronicles by Bob Gruff.
Pete: Yeah that was pretty fucking good!
Ian: It’s the bollocks. I have the hardback version, golden
chimp leather.
Worst book ever written
Pete: Skinhead by Richard Allen! No Suedehead by Richard Allen!
Ian: That “Spirit of ‘69” thing by that Scottish
bloke. Probably would’ve been ok if he didn’t call it ‘A
Skinhead Bible’. Too many people take it seriously – especially
Yanks and Spaniards.
Pete: And anything by Shaun Hutson!
Ian: Who’s Shaun Hutson?
Pete: You don’t wanna know!
What made you decide to record a Madness
cover on the new album?
Pete: Well who don’t like Madness? Personally I’ve always
been a bit of a Madness fan and ‘Bed & Breakfast Man’ has
always been one of my favourite Madness songs so I suppose it’s a
bit of self-indulgence really, but what the fuck, we’ve earned it!
Ian: It was either gonna be a Madness song or one by the Jam. We
didn’t know if it was gonna work or not really, but thought we’d
give it a go anyway. When we first heard John pulled off the piano solo
on his guitar we laughed like fuck, it sounded mad.
Are you into any punk bands at all?
What punk band do you most respect if any?
Pete: Yeah there’s been some fucking good punk bands over
the years, my favourite all time favourite band is probably The Sex Pistols
but the punk band I most respect is The Exploited, they do what the fuck
they want, have done for years and don’t give a flying fuck, their
attitude to all this bollocks is spot on! You hear a lot of shit about
Wattie on the grapevine but I think he’s a top geezer, we’ve
played with them a couple of times and it’s been a pleasure, I hope
they continue to make fucking awesome music for many years to come!
Ian: Yep. I love it, Pistols, One Way System, Anti nowhere League,
Partisans, Exploited…. The list is endless. I ‘aint got no time
for the unwashed Conflict types though.
Pete: Aint ya? I thought you liked those chaps! Enjoy HITS then
wont ya matey!
Do you believe the film Romper Stomper
is a true representation of Aussie Skins?
Ian: Well of course! I’m sure you all sew army patches on
your jackets, read Mein Kampf and stab each other. Don’t you?
Pete: Yeah, everyone knows that Aussie skins base their whole life
on Romper Stomper, it’s common knowledge!
Time Team or Extreme Archaeology?
Ian: They should combine the two. Seeing that West Country twat
in the floppy hat hanging over a river by his feet might be fun.
Pete: Ian, you know you love old Phil really, he’s your hero,
you love him, he’s your dad he is, he’s your dad and you love
him! See that bloke on Time Team, the one with the floppy hat going ‘ooh
argh!’ all the time …he’s your dad he is!
What songs or albums are bugging the
shit out of you at the moment that you can’t stop playing in yer
car?
Ian: Jimmy Jimmy by the Undertones. I saw them a couple of weeks
ago, the new singer pisses over Fergal. The new Argy Bargy/Discipline
split album is good, that’s been getting a few plays, and also the
TMF (Tattooed Mother Fuckers) promo. Have you heard the demo by Steve
Lee & the OiSharks?
Pete: The Gauntlet by the Dropkicks, Hooligans Heaven by Discipline,
The Ultimate High by Major Accident, the wife’s Velvet Revolver album
aint bad either, and good old Never Mind the Bollocks is never too far
from my reach.
Little Fern Cotton! … Would ya?
Hmm? Would ya?
Ian: In the birthday card I received she signed it Fearn. Actually.
Pete: Yeah yeah that’s all well and good, but you aint answered
Fiona’s rather saucy question have ya! birithday card, my arse!
Ian: Fern Cotton? Fiona Cotton? Dot Cotton? Needle & Cotton?
Why the name ‘When Duty Calls’
for the third album?
Ian: I don’t know.
Pete: There’s a song on the album called Chosen Men and in
it is the line ‘When duty calls me I must go to stand and face another
foe’, it came from that line.
Ian: Is it?? I sang ‘When fruity calls….’ on the
album. Shit!
Any other recording projects lined
up for Retaliator in the near future?
Ian: Yeah. We were never happy with some of the recordings on
‘Order of Chaos’, so we’re gonna re-record a few of the
tracks in session sometime this year. Probably stick them out on an EP.
Any final comments?
Pete: Nope!
Ian: Pah!
Interview courtesy of Aussieskins
fanzine
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