Interview from Equalizing Distort  zine (Canada) Vol. 7/issue 4 from September 2007

You can download the whole issue here.
 
Alright Filip for those EQUALIZING DISTORT reader’s that don’t know the mighty SEE YOU IN HELL can we get the standard question out of the way.  Who is in See You In Hell and what the hell influences the band?
At first thank you for doing interview with us for Eq. Distort! I feel honored {honestly} as it’s one of my favorite zines – really, no ass-kissing!
Jozka {a.k.a. Joseph} sings, Tom plays bass and sings, Beno play drums and I play guitar. Right now we started to play with 2nd guitar player called Paaya, who will play with us as a guest on some shows handling some finger-breaking solos. He is busy playing guitar in another band from Brno {FESTA DESPERATO} so we want to use him only for some foreign shows/tours {such as the Brazil tour this autumn and Southern-European tour in March 2008} and some “special” Czech shows.
Our influences are basically fast and raw hardcore/punk bands from all over the world... we love bands from all corners of the globe, but most of our influences come from Japan as we feel that some of the bands from “land of the rising sun” do possess special high-tension energy, passion and dynamics... stuff like FORWARD, JUDGEMENT, DEATHSIDE, ASSFORT, GOUKA, PADLOCK, D.S.B., NK6, AGE, GAUZE... you know the deal. But we don’t intend to copy them, just to get some general influence.
 
The bands name seems pretty self explanatory is there any special meaning behind the band’s name.  Has there been any backlash from the Christian folks, concerned groups?
No, there’s no special meaning behind the name. My old band’s name translates as “dead future”, so I wanted to have something equally optimistic, haha... Just the usual harsh, negative and angry hardcore/punk band’s name!
You should understand that Czech Republic is more or less atheist country and in general very laid when it comes to religious issues. Recently I have read that we have the biggest number of atheists in whole Europe, which is super-nice! So we have never had any response from Christian folks for our band’s activities. Name like “SEE YOU IN HELL” doesn’t shock anybody here.
 
From my recollections the band has been around since 1999 can you let us know about your releases?  How do you think the band has grown in that time.
You are right, we started in 1999, when my old band MRTVA BUDOUCNOST slowly headed to it’s demise {after being active since 1994 - M.B. finally split up in April 2000}. At the beginning I wanted SEE YOU IN HELL to sound very different from M.B., which was basically extreme hardcore slaughter with blast-beats all the way. Also the original SYIH’s drummer had some “very unusual” way of playing. So our earlier stuff {demo, split EP w/MINDLOCK and full EP} sounds a bit like “chaotic emo-violence” music w/extreme high-pitched vocals. We liked stuff like ORCHID, HIS HERO IS GONE, BORN AGAINST, PALATKA or CATHARSIS a lot back then. Later, around 2002, we parted our ways with this guy and got new drummer, who plays more straight-forward style, which suits us way, way better. So slowly we started to change our style to more thrash/crust-oriented music {split EP w/THE PUBLIC and split tape w/HOMO CONSUMENS} and finally to more rocking fast dynamic hardcore, which we play today {first LP “Umet se prodat/Market Your Self”, split EP w/MASSGENOCIDE PROCESS and our newest LP “Utok/Attack”}. We don’t sound at all like we did back in our beginnings, but I think this is just natural progression understandable when you play for 8 years.
 
Your lyrics are very well written. They are pessimistic without being overly bitter.  Can you share with us some song topics. Do You have any favorite lyrics?
Thanx for your comment! Most of our lyrics, especially the older ones, are just observations of the fucked up ways how this society works, observations mostly from the view of an individual, who is not very happy, rather sad, depressed, pissed off... Some of the newer lyrics {especially these on our newest LP} are kind of “empowering”, urging for an action, not to have fear to decide for yourself and go for it. They suit better our more straight-forward style of playing and also some of the adolescent fears and depressions are over. Now, when we are all in our 30’s, I think we know little more what do we want and how to reach it, so most of our newer lyrics just reflect this. We do sing them in Czech language, so sometimes the meaning could be lost in the translations, but we do our best to communicate our message.
 
I’m hoping that I’m not straying from HC territory here but there have been some fairly significant changes in your country over the past 20 years.  Can you tell us about life under a communist regime?  What was the scene like at that time?  Are there any vinyl documents from this time?
I was 14 years old when the old Communist regime collapsed in November 1989. It’s little difficult to explain now life here back then to somebody, who lives for whole his/her life in “standard capitalist democracy”. If we speak about politics/general life, then you should understand that everything was controlled by the ruling Communist party, which was basically the only political party allowed here. There were no “free elections”, almost no possibility to travel to Western countries, there was strong censorship, total control of everything.
Scene back then was more underground and more honest, no doubt about it. In 70’s and early 80’s the state considered rock music in general {not only punk} as a threat and tried to ban it. There were lists with dozens of bands names, who should be prohibited from playing gigs. It was almost impossible to play live legally - you had to obtain some kind of guarantee from one of the state’s approved organizations {like the “Union Of Socialist Youth”} and you had to go through musical exams in front of commission composed of professional musicians, local politicians etc. Also there were no clubs {of course no squats, youth centres etc. as well} and basically no possibilities to play at all. All this repression against rock went back to mid 70’s when the states-opposition {totally illegal of course} supported underground rock movement around the band PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE. In general you can say that Communist state did fear of any youth movement which was not under his strict control.
Despite this, very first punk bands in Czechoslovakia started back in late 70’s after some UK punk vinyls were smuggled here - bands like EXTEMPORE, ZIKKURAT, GARAZ, ENERGIE G... later also A64, KECUP, VISACI ZAMEK or F.P.B. They were influenced mostly by the most known punk bands such as SEX PISTOLS, DAMNED, STRANGLERS, DEAD BOYS, GENERATION X etc. Also some of these bands were not strict punk - they played some sort of new wave or jazz-rock, but decided to throw few punk numbers {often cover songs with original music, but Czech lyrics} into their sets - this was case of bands like EXTEMPORE, GARAZ and ZIKKURAT. You can still find the {usually very good!} live tapes from these bands, which are the only source of music from these times as these bands obviously had no chance to record in normal studio or even to release record {there were only three official state-owned record labels back then}. I would recommend F.P.B. especially, who played really good hard-driving punk with poetic lyrics. Some live tapes do exist + in early 90’s they re-recorded their old songs and released them on LP and CD. From the ashes of F.P.B. arose two other very interesting bands - UZ JSME DOMA and SANOV, who still play and the former one are very popular in the abroad {with few U.S. tours and many releases behind them}.
You should understand the circumstances under which these bands did existed: there was total cultural isolation from the “Western” world - you could not buy the punk records in the shops, you could not see the punk bands on TV or hear them on radio, there were only very rare possibilities to see punk bands live officially in early 80’s, you could not travel outside {with the exception of other socialist countries}, there were no shows of foreign punk bands at all {with the exception of DIE TOTEN HOSEN from Germany who played here in 1987 and it has ended with huge riot}. So you can’t wonder that most of punk bands were influenced by stuff like SEX PISTOLS, EXPLOITED, CLASH etc. as it was virtually impossible to find recordings of more underground/D.I.Y. bands here.
On the other hand sometimes the people from Western countries have these ill-informed views about living in Communist times - it was not easy, but there was no hunger, the political and cultural repression during 80’s slowly calmed down and it wasn’t like every  punk rocker would get shot or sent to prison. Of course that police sometimes did attack the illegal gigs {held in pubs, private homes etc.} and people got beaten up or fined, but usually not jailed. But the secret police kept an eye on punk movement {like on every youth movement} and after the regime’s change in 1989 it was revealed from secret police’s archives that some people active in punk scene as band members or gig organizers were secret police’s agents... sad but true.
As the 80’s went on, there were more punk and hardcore bands, around 1985 the regime changed its repression to more tolerance and allowed the Union of Socialist Youth to organize huge “rock festivals”, where some punk bands were allowed to play. I think that if the “revolution” in 1989 would not come, then there would be also official punk records released in the end {like in Poland or Yugoslavia}. The only official Czechoslovakian punk record from Communist times is VISACI ZAMEK 7” released in 1988 {and it’s very good!}.
 
How are things in the country now?  For Canadian kids it may seem so extreme and far fetched to think that Punks were seen as outcast and could disappear in the dead of night, let a lone a life in which the government censors, represses and controls your life (more than they do here).
Like I said above “punx disappearing in the dead of night” didn’t happened at all, the real political processes with executions took place back in 50’s, but in 70’s/80’s it wasn’t so brutal anymore. But still the people still got beaten up at police interrogations for example. The level of control was obnoxious {especially in school and at work} and many people couldn’t handle it and gave up, also many underground rock musicians in 70’s escaped to West, some of them even to Canada like the saxophon-player of PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE for example.
 
Thanks for the socio-political detour. How did the “Market Yourself” come out in Japan?  It was great when we were last visiting Japan Shingo from Too Circle was talking about the upcoming cd release and the tour. 
I think that our singer traded some copies of our LP with Shingo and Shingo mentioned that he likes it and would like to re-release it on CD on his label. We always prefer to have our shit re-released all over the world {“Umet se prodat” was put out on different formats in Mexico, Belarus, Croatia, Indonesia etc. and “Utok” will be released in Brazil, Macedonia, Japan, Malaysia and Belarus/Mexico again} to make it more accessible. So we were very happy when Shingo offered this to us. And of course even happier when he had agreed to organize the Japanese tour for us! He told us that he wanted to support the band from {former} Eastern Europe since mostly American bands come to Japan all the time. It was quite brave step from him since we all know how {un}popular bands from some “non-trendy” parts of the world are {bands from countries NOT named USA, Japan and Sweden}.
 
Can you tell us a bit about your experiences touring Japan? Do you have any other life altering experiences from the many tours you have done?
Hahaha, I could write a book about touring Japan... I wrote report to my zine, which had originally like 40 pages in Word format, haha... I would rather recommend you to read my Japanese tour report in latest Profane Existence double issue since this is in English and pretty exhausting. Of course that Japanese tour was a total blast, we love the way how the scene works there, very reliable and 100% trustful, everything works by the clock there. Of course the bands just shred there, we did played with more than 50 bands and most of them just left us with our jaws dropped on the floor... we were so lucky that Shingo managed to get us shows with killer bands like NK6, SU19B, DERIDE, VOCO PROTESTA, AGE, CONTRAST ATTITUDE, ACROSTIX, FRAMTID, EFFIGY, CONGA FURY, DISCLOSE, AGRESSION, J.U.U.M., ENCROACHED, CROW, PADLOCK... this was like a dream coming true, I don’t know what more to say. As I said everything was well organized, the p.a. in live houses where we played was always super-strong and some of the uchiages/after-parties were so cool and crazy... we will never forget these times! The only problem was lack of food {we are vegetarians/vegans} and sleep {sometimes we had to drive right after the show’s end} and of course the communication barrier was sometimes a problem, not to talk about money for flight tickets, which we never made back. But fuck this, these are just minor things and we would be always happy to repeat this experience again... maybe in 2009??? It’s too far away now to think about it. We will see. By the way, Shingo will co-release our new record on CD on his Too Circle label soon.
 
Is the picture on the back of the cd sleeve from the 2nd annual Killed By Brno fest? Can you tell us a bit about that show. From what I heard it sounded like a blast.
Yes, it comes from the 2nd annual Killed By Brno Fest, which took the place in December 2004. It was 5 years anniversary of our band and we borrowed monk’s suits from Brno’s National Theatre and build huge wooden cross. We started our set with “Countess Bathory” cover song by VENOM and finished up the set with cover by local black metal heroes ROOT called “Hrbitov” {“Cemetery”}. Of course it was  huge circle-pit madness all the time. A year later for the 3rd KBB we dressed in “kimonos” as samurais and started with “Distort Japan” by GAUZE... for 4th Killed By Brno last December we dressed in total punk as fuck fashion in black jackets and spiked our hair and did five DISCHARGE covers in a row... so it looks that we organize this fest to make total fools of ourselves and to have some fun. But the real idea behind the fest is to invite the bands from all over the Czech as every year different bands play and to have a killer show together. 8-9 bands play every year and usually 200-250 people come. I love these shows! While we {“United Crusties” gig collective = basically all SYIH members + friends} organize gigs for so many foreign bands since 2003 {we did BORN DEAD ICONS, SICK TERROR, 9 SHOCKS TERROR, TRAGEDY, SEVERED HEAD OF STATE, MUNICIPAL WASTE, D.F.A., GIUDA, GASMASK TERROR, SOCIAL CHAOS, MIGRA VIOLENTA, BORN/DEAD, FUCKED UP, AFTERBIRTH, CATHETER, TAEVE, SUMMON THE CROWS, LIFE SENTENCE, FRAMTID, DISTRESS, F.P.O. and many more}, it’s nice to have a party for the end of the year just with our closer friends.
 
On the first lp there seems to be some more guitar work mixed into the hardcore mix. Is this continued on the second lp?  How is the second lp coming along?
The 2nd LP is already out since June 2007. I think that it sounds more straight-forward, more rocking and more aggressive, but you better decide for yourself. Yes, there are also more guitar solos and especially the “gang choruses” are much urgent now, which I totally love. I think that we are all pretty satisfied with our new record even some people do complain that it doesn’t sound so “crusty” or “heavy”. I don’t care, there are way too many bands in Czech today trying to copy the currently so popular “crust sound” {SKITSYSTEM/DISFEAR/HELLSHOCK} that there’s no need for more of this. Especially, when most of bands trying to go for this style just fail miserably. We are totally happy with our style and don’t plan to change it radically. I am little bored by people who expect every band to sound like the bands who record in Sunlight studio... for me punk is still more about music + message than about super-professional sound.
 
I’ve been trading with labels from the Czech Republic for years and have always been impressed with the level of co-operation between labels putting out releases.  I’ve also been a bit frustrated having all of these great records but folks over here just don’t care because the Czech Scene isn’t in the limelight.  What are some Czech bands and labels that you would recommend us to check out?
Yes, the cooperation thing is very inspirational and D.I.Y. to the bone! I am very happy that we have so many vinyls coming out here in Czech and people cooperating together instead of having one or two biggest labels “ruling” the whole scene... Some of the best labels in Czech are Insane Society Records {www.insanesociety.net, records by AFTERBIRTH, GUIDED CRADLE, THEMA 11, DREAD 101, SEE YOU IN HELL, GRIDE, LYCANTHROPHY... soon also ARTIMUS PYLE and maybe new VIVISICK LP?}, Phobia Records {www.insanesociety.net/phobia, records and tapes by DODSDOMD, D.F.C., SEE YOU IN HELL, WORHATS... soon also FESTA DESPERATO, RISPOSTA and more}, Ultima Ratio {ultima.ratio@seznam.cz, records and tapes by ZEMEZLUC, AD CALENDAS GRAECAS, FOOLOCRACY, REAKCE NA ZMENU, SEE YOU IN HELL, SOTATILA... soon also V.I.R., E330 and more}, Gasmask Records {www.maskcontrol.com, records and tapes by FESTA DESPERATO, AGHAST, DOG SOLDIER, LEBENDEN TOTEN, GUIDED CRADLE and more}, Malarie {malariepunk@seznam.cz, not very active now, but in the past did killer stuff like COMPLICITE CANDIDE, INNOXIA CORPORA and more}, Papagajuv Hlasatel Records {www.phr.cz, more punk rock label, did records, CDs and tapes by MAD PIGS, DESTRUX, VARUKERS, ILEGALITY and more}, Samuel Records {http://www.sweb.cz/samuel.records, label of LAHAR’s singer, he did records of bands like GRIDE, IDIOT SAVANT, SHORTFUSE, LAHAR, RABIES and more}... and many, many smaller labels who join cooperation to get around 50-100 copies of the record. Like my label Hluboka Orba, I did co-released EPs of DEMARCHE, FESTA DESPERATO, STOLEN LIVES/TIME OF MY LIFE, PRUMYSLOVA SMRT/KOBRA 11 and more, but they are all sold out.
 
I know this interview is with SEE YOU IN HELL but an interview that doesn’t touch on your zine “Hluboka Orba” just seems wrong. I heard that the zine has come out of hibernation is there any truth to that?  Do you want to talk briefly about your book as well?
No, it was never in state of hibernation. I started it back in summer of 93 and so far did 26 issues. It’s true that originally it came out more often, but recently I prefer to make just one issue per year or 1,5 year and make it really huge, informative and with sick graphics. So it’s basically a book as the last 3 issues were all offset printed, had 150-200 pages of full page format and print run of 800 – 1.000 copies. I plan my next issue for spring/summer 2008. I think there’s no need to hurry since there’s internet for all these hot news and trendy bands. I rather prefer to dig deeper and it takes some time. The zine is focused on D.I.Y. hardcore/punk from all over the globe, usually of the “short, fast and raw” style, I like to print city-scene reports {thanx a lot for the Toronto one couple of issues back, Craig!}, tour reports, various political articles, columns... people from some of the best Czech bands {GRIDE, PANGS OF REMORSE, BALACLAVA, COMPLICITE CANDIDE, FESTA DESPERATO etc.} help me a lot already since the end 90’s writing columns, reviews, doing interviews, so it’s not “one-man show” at all. It could be Czech version of MRR, but lacks the periodicity... but I don’t care. It’s written in Czech language, by the way.
About the book about Czechoslovakian hardcore/punk in the Communist times... I wrote it and put it out back in 2002, it has more than 300 pages and tons of photos, it’s detailed history with long band stories from the times before 1989. It’s written in Czech again, but has longer English summary. I did 2000 copies in total and it’s sold out now. Another repress out maybe in early 2008?
 
Okay if I can take you off topic once again. If you were to meet up with me on my as of yet unplanned Ossuary tour of the Czech region what 10 lp’s, 7’ or cd’s  of Czech origin are  you encouraging me to purchase. 
Ossuary tour is 100% recommended, this most popular one in Kostnice/Kutna Hora near Prague is a must for every crustie or punk! Awesome huge piles of bones and skulls!
Anyway speaking about records... as I said above, it sucks that the 80’s are not documented on vinyl almost at all, I would recommend demo tapes of RADEGAST {from 86 and 89}, SMRT MLADEHO SEBEVRAHA {from 87} and HRDINOVE NOVE FRONTY {from 87-89} most, also some live F.P.B. stuff. This would be for 80s. The HRDINOVE NOVE FRONTY demos selection was released on vinyl LP by Monitor label in 1992 or 93 I think, so if you search for vinyls, check this out. More records:
-         SKIMMED “New Insanity” mini LP {D.I.Y., 1990}
-         ZEMEZLUC “Fajn, bezva, prima” LP {D.I.Y, 1990}
-         MICHAELS UNCLE “The End Of Dark Psychedelia” LP {D.I.Y., 1990}
-         HEARTLINE 7” {one of the many label names of mad Otto Itkonen, 1993}
-         CUL DE SAC 7” {Malarie, 1994}
-         GRIDE/LIES AND DISTRUST split 7” {Insane Society, 1997}
-         TELEFON “Hakova Panenka” LP {Malarie, 1998}
-         COMPLICITE CANDIDE “Mrtvi Havlove” LP {Malarie, 2000???}
-         INNOXIA CORPORA “Je tezke...” LP {Malarie, 2001???}
-         v/a “Dying Alive/Living Dead” LP {cooperation, 2003}
 
I am not 100% sure if these are the most recommended and to name just 10 of them is so difficult, but I think that you would enjoy at least some... especially bands like COMPLICITE CANDIDE, TELEFON and INNOXOA CORPORA do sound so good in their kind of original approach to punk drawing influences from Eastern European authentic/original punk bands like DEZERTER {Poland} and GRAZHDANSKAJA OBORONA {Russia}, from older shit like STOOGES, DEAD BOYS, WIRE... check them out. HEARTLINE and CUL DE SAC were some of the first fast and raw political hardcore/punk bands, the former sounding little like SEDITION, the second playing raw primitive punk as fuck... SKIMMED did ultra-fast “VOIVOD on 45 rpm” shit, MICHAELS UNCLE have played brutal psychedelic hardcore w/chainsaw guitar... The compilation LP was put together by me and has some of the best Czech bands of early 2000’s like HOMO CONSUMENS, DREAD 101, INNOXIA CORPORA, GRIDE, SICHERHATE SYSTEM... also huge {really huge} Czech scene’s history written in English.
It should be also noted, that Czech has great tradition of both fastcore/extreme HC/grind bands {PANGS OF REMORSE, MRTVA BUDOUCNOST, NOT, GRIDE, LAHAR, RABIES, MINDLOCK, PRUMYSLOVA SMRT, KOBRA 11, GREX, LYCANTHROPHY, NEEDFUL THINGS, DISFIGURED CORPSE, CEREBRAL TURBULENCY, SHEEVA YOGA, SCARTO, NESOUCAST STROJE...} and crust/raw punk bands {HOW LONG?, LIES AND DISTRUST, DREAD 101, V.I.R., LOS SOMMROS, FESTA DESPERATO, RISPOSTA, BOMBENATTACK, SPES EREPTA, DEMARCHE, MASSGENOCIDE PROCESS, TOMOROW’S HELL, BASTO...} dating from mid 90’s until today, so you should check out some of them, most of them have some vinyl available.
By the way, right now I work on compilation of hardcore/punk bands from my hometown and around, it should be out next year and should have 12 bands, mostly raw punk, fast HC and crust: ZEMEZLUC, FESTA DESPERATO, RISPOSTA, SEE YOU IN HELL, MAC GYVER, PRIPYAT, REAKCE NA ZMENU, EVIDENCE SMRTI and more!