SYIH

Interview with Filip from Nolie zine issue 1 (from Belarus/winter 2005)

1. Hi! What age were you when beginning to play this music and what does your name mean?

I became interested in punk back in 1989, I was 14 back then... In 1994 I started to play in MRTVA BUDOUCNOST (but I used to play in other bands already back in early 90s) and in 1999 we started SEE YOU IN HELL (MRTVA BUDOUCNOST splitted up in April 2000). Today there are four people playing in SEE YOU IN HELL – Jozka (vocals) – he is 30 years old and has 10 years daughter, Tom (bass) – he is 26 years old, Beno (drums) – he is 32 years old and has 2 daughters and I am 30 this year and also have a daughter (10 months old). OK, enough about numbers and years, I hate mathematics...
I think that our name is pretty clear, we are not the most optimistic people you would meet...
2. On what music were you brought up and what inspires you now: music, movie, books etc?

I think that most of us used to be metalheads in late 80s and we still like some killer old metal like MOTÖRHEAD, SODOM (we cover „Ausgebombt“), KREATOR, SLAYER, VENOM (we cover „Comtess Bathory“)... or their Czechoslovakian 80s contemoraries like DEBUSTROL, ARAKAIN, TÖRR, MASTERS HAMMER, KRYPTOR... Today we listen up to all different kinds of hardcore/punk from all over the world, realy dozens or even hundreds of bands and it is impossible to list even 5% of them... Some Scandinavian (SKITSYSTEM, TOTALITÄR, MOB 47, WOLFBRIGADE) or Japanese (CRUDE, FORWARD, GAUZE, D.S.B., PAINTBOX, BASTARD) stuff is favourite among all the bandmembers as far as quite a good number of Czech bands who are usually our good friends – HOMO CONSUMENS, GRIDE, SICHER HATE SYSTEM, LAHAR, MASS GENOCIDE PROCESS, GUIDED CRADLE, FESTA DESPERATO, BASTO... These are all great bands. But as I said we really listen up to many bands from all over the world, not only these most popular bands like TRAGEDY, BORN DEAD ICONS, FROM ASHES RISE or ARTIMUS PYLE (although we like all of them and we also played gigs with all of them). Check out bands like CONFUSIONE from Italy, HRYDJUVERK from Iceland, VISIONS OF WAR from Belgium, KARNVAPEN ATTACK from Spain, ANTICHRIST from Poland, HUMAN ERROR from Hungary, SHOCK TROOP from Austria, BURIAL from Germany... I also like lots of „exotic“ bands from countries like ex-USSR or other stuff mostly released on Tian An Men 89 Records and Darbouka Records, I have even some bands from Belarus – like the MANDRAZH 7“, DEVIATION CD (great!), HATE TO STATE demo, LAMANT demo (killer stuff!)...
3. Is there any shops in your town where you can buy old classical records of punk/hc bands?

No. There are some shops where you can buy overpriced trendy „punk“ clothes, but no record shops. But there are like 3-5 distros on every hardcore/punk concert here, so you can always buy records this way. And there are also lots of good mailorders and distros, so its no problem to find some good stuff.
4. Tell about your lable “Hluboka Orba”. What requirements are there for the bands that what to be released on it? What are you engaged in beside your band?

Well, Hluboka Orba is basically the name of fanzine which I do since 1993. I just put our issue 25 in February 2005, but now its more like a book than normal zine as it has more than 160 pages of full page (A4) size and its put toghether like real book. In this issue theres also LAMANT interview and couple of issues back I had Minsk scene report too. I try to do my best to cover good domestic and international hardcore/punk in my zine and also some political issues. There are many people colaborating on the zine, people from Czech bands like GRIDE, BASTO, PANGS OF REMORSE (r.i.p.), MINDLOCK (r.i.p.) or BALACLAVA, also from Insane Society Records etc. use to write here. Last issue had 800 copies of print run and it is now oldest running Czech zine. By the way we review vinyl and tapes only, no CDs. Next issue out in 2006 probably...
Hluboka Orba Records is label releasing SEE YOU IN HELL stuff only, so it helped to co-release MINDLOCK/SEE YOU IN HELL split EP, THE PUBLIC/SEE YOU IN HELL split EP, SEE YOU IN HELL full EP and the „Dying Alive/Living Dead“ compilation LP.
5. Is it possible for any punk/hc diy belorussian band to be released on cassette, CD, LP/EP?

I dont know, you have to ask Belarusian band, we are from Czech Rep.... I would really like to see some vinyl of bands like LAMANT or DEVIATION as they are both excellent.

6. Do you participate in demonstrations, actions of protest and are they useful?

Sometimes yes, but not so often like before – like in early or mid 90s. I think that today there are unfortunately much less interesting or important political activities than before. Some political activities became too ideological – especially the so called anarchist movement and I dont like ideologies at all. I used to work full time at social-ecological nongovernmental organization (NGO) for 3 years and I still work there as volunteer, I was involved in different campaigns against shopping malls invasion to Czech towns, we also do activities against arms trade, we support refugees or womens rights. There is also some cooperation with Belarusian opposition organizations, some of our members went to Belarus last year as the official supervisors of the 2004 plebisicit about Lukashenkos propositions. There was also delegation of cca 10 members of our organization who visited Belarus in 2003 I think (but I was not part of it). We also co-organized protests against U.S. invasion in Iraq. Today I work full time as social lawyer for poor people (mostly Roma community in Brno) and I think that it is probably more political than screaming all the same slogans all the time from the stage like many so called „political“ bands do.
7. Is there bars, squats, clubs and any other places where shows can take place and you can just communicate?
In Czech there is only one squat – Milada squat in Prague, but there are some great gig places all over the country. One of the best is for sure VRAH Club in Roznov pod Radhostem (www.vrah.wz.cz) going strong since 2000, small DIY place managed by people around Malarie Records and COMPLICITE CANDIDA band. In Brno we have very cool club called YACHT, we organize there shows with our United Crusties collective. Some other good places to play are COSA NOSTRA (in Prelouc), KLIDEK (in Hradec Kralove), 007 (in Prague), GOGO (in Znojmo), PALUBA (in Pisek) etc. Some of them are just normal commercial rock clubs or pubs but they allow hardcore/punk gigs to be organized there, so its cool. We also sometimes organize gigs in our rehearsal room, which is great fun.
8. You conceived playing dark and ferocious HC for showing the spirit of the unjust world, didn’t you?

Yes, it was one of the initial reasons for our existence.
9. On the LP SIYH/THE PUBLIC you have most unusual sound. May be any secrets in creating your sound?

I dont know... We were lucky to finally find a good studio, which suits as well. But I would say for sure that the sound on our full LP and on new split EP with MASS GENOCIDE PROCESS is much better.
10. Is punk consumption so bad as philistine consumption?

Well, I like „consumption“ of records and tapes, but it is the basic love for punk music, so I am not sure if it is still consumption. I think it is pretty stupid to spend lots of money on punk „fashion“ and trendy clothes, so in this way yes, punk consumption may be sometimes as stupid as the normal consumption... Especially overprices street punk and skinhead clothes are pretty stupid.
11. Did you happen to be faced with anything strange, unusual?

Maybe with lots of mail from Belarus in recent months?! (but I like it!)
12. What is the slogan of your band which helps you to stay together?

We dont have any slogan like this... I dont like slogans at all, people who want to manipulate the other, who want to manipulate big crowds of people use the slogans... We play together for more than 5 years already, we had some small line-up changes, right now I would say we have pretty strong line-up and everything is working out just great. I think that it is important that we are already a little older and we know what we want.
13. What have you heard about Belarus and would you like to detour it with the shows?

I already mentioned some bands from your country which I like in question nr. 2, I have few pen pals in Belarus and I also help to distribute the ABOLISHING BORDERS FROM BELOW magazine, which has always info about political situation in Belarus, so I think I have some information about your country... I can only imagine how fucked up it is like with organizing gigs (problems with nazis and cops) or with isolation of your country from the rest of the world... but I am sure it will change for the better soon. We would like to play one day countries like yours and other ex-USSR countries, but right now I am afraid that it is still very complicated with transport problems, money, customs etc. But it would be great to see band like LAMANT playing here in Czech!
14. Thanks for the answers! Any wishes or advice for readers?

We will release split tape with 20 MINUTES OF CHAOS soon on some Belarusian label (I dont know the name sorry – contact), so you can hear SEE YOU IN HELL for some very cheap price in your country as well. You will find our LP, split 7“ with MASS GENOCIDE PROCESS and some bonus songs there. This year we are touring England again and in 2006 hopefully Japan. Write us if you are interested in anything cncerning SEE YOU IN HELL or Czech hardcore/punk scene. Thanx a lot for this intereview, keep up the great work and stay punk forever!