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This interview with Filip came out in Maximum Rock‘n’Roll US monthly. It’s Hungarian version was also published in TOTAL ADDICTION fanzine in spring 2002.

1) The usual beginning. When the band have formed? Who founded at and who make the line-up in present and before? Please tell me a short story of See You In Hell with the most important things.

Boring story - we started back in June 99, when me and drummer Martin decided to jam together and to look for other bandmembers to form some new band, different from the bands we used to play in back then (he played in GAS CHAMBER and I played in M.B.). It took us quite long time to found the other 2 guys, but in the end of the year we were finally complete. I used to know Jozka, who is singing now, for long years already and Tomas, the bassplayer, was found through an add in local music store. We played our first gig in August 2000 in VRAH club in Roznov pod Radhostem - we played with LUMEN there. The line-up is still the same, we would like to add second guitar player, but it is almost impossible to find anyone in this city interested in this kind of music.

2) Have you played before in other bands, and maybe now beside of See You In Hell? For exampt you are the ex-member of Mrtvá Budoucnost... (Indeed why split up this band?)

I used to play in MRTVA BUDOUCNOST between 1994 and 2000. In the end of M.B. existence we realised that we doesnt progress anywhere and so we decided it would be better to stop. We did couple of last gigs during the spring 2000 (with GRIDE, PANGS OF REMORSE, DREAD 101...i.e. the bands we used to play before most and probably the bands who used to be most close to us) and splitted up in April. There is now “The Best Shots 97-99” tape released, which is something like 2nd part of our discography, it includes all studio stuff from this period (2 split LPs, 1 split EP and some comp. tracks). I am glad that we splitted up peacefully and at good terms. Martin used to play in GAS CHAMBER (and Tomas for a short while too), I guess they splitted up sometime in the autumn 2000, they used to play heavy hardcore/metal, they did one studio tape. Right now only Martin has a side band - again some metal/HC stuff, but you should better ask him about it.

3) I need for the complete discography of SYIH and please tell me something about every stuff!

No big discography - there are only 8 songs tape and split 7”EP with MINDLOCK, both recorded during one recording session. Till now we spreaded around 400 copies of the tape and it is distributed by some other people in different parts of the world (I guess that in Hungary it is available from Mr. Slayer out of HUMAN ERROR, isn‘t it?). The EP was pressed in 1.400 copies oand it was benefit for the abovementioned VRAH club - we earned around 200 USD for them, which is cool. It is definitely best gig place in Czech, runned on d.i.y. principles and they always needs money to survive. I guess that the record is also almost sold out, it was cooperation of 17 european labels and as far as I know most of them already dont have any copies of it left. We will have 3 songs from the demo on compilation CD + EP on 625 Prod. from USA too.

4) What do you think about your releases? Are you satisfied with it? Please tell me something about every stuff.

I am really satisfied with some songs on the tape, but the sound on the split 7” is a bit weaker due to pressing plant. But in general I am satisfied with both of them. Recently we changed our sound a bit, we are now more downtuned and also the new songs are faster and more raw, so I am really looking forward to hear them recorded. Next time we also plan to record in other studio, to get heavier and more agressive sound.

5) What was the audiences reaction to the last release?

Some people liked them, some dont (some people use to compare it too much to MRTVA BUDOUCNOST, which is stupid, we are not the same band!). But to be honest I dont care too much about the audiences reaction, I play the music I like and thats all.

6) How known are you in your country and in Europe/world?

I dont know! We are probably known well over here in Czech and Slovakia, but it is also due to our other activities (like doing the zine or organising gigs in our hometown), also because my previous band. Again, I dont care about issues like this too much, it doesnt matter to me too much.

7) What do you think about the scene in your country? Something about the czech punk scene? What's your favourite czech bands?

I would say we have quite good scene over here. Ofcourse it goes in circles - sometimes it sucks, sometimes it is OK. There are certain areas where is the scene really great and active and some areas where it almost doesnt exist at all. I would say that the best area is the south/east, small cities like Napajedla or Kojetin (you will hardly find them on the map) with many active people and some great bands like MINDLOCK (you know them - earpircing grind!) , FULL BLADDER (DROPDEAD reincarnation with crazy female vocals), CRUCIFY YOURSELF (emo violence insanity), OLD TESTAMENT (HC/metal)...the gigs in this part of country are always very crazy and the people over there take also part in activities like animal rights, nature protection etc. I have many friends there and I usually feel there like at home. Other great area is the Roznov pod Radhostem/Vsetin, with VRAH and KEBAB clubs and many bands like CO-CA (the best Czech punk rock), AD CALENDAS GRAECAS (like LOS CRUDOS!), INNOXIA CORPORA (again, great punk, in the vein of old Czech punk bands), PSI (new band with ex-TELEFON and CO-CA people)...also Malarie records (oldest active HC label in Czech) is now located in Roznov. VRAH is the place of many gigs, usually with great atmosphere. If you like grindcore, then Ostrava (the north/east part of Czech) is the place to find some of the best bands of this genre - MALIGNANT TUMOR (used to be goregrind, now since several years they play mince core/punk influenced by AGATHOCLES), CEREBRAL TURBULENCY (the best NASUM rip off! Killer band - new CD out now), HIBAKUSHA (AG/DISRUPT influenced), CARNAL DIAFRAGMA (goregrind), P.T.A.O. (noisecore), DISFIGURED CORPSE (very powerful HC/grind)... And then there is ofcourse Prag with lots of different bands like LUMEN (you know them), DUSSANDER (they splitted up recently - S.E. metal), DREAD 101 (best Czech crust band), PANGS OF REMORSE (the first Czech extreme HC/power violence band - ex-MRTVA BUDOUCNOST drummer plays there guitar now)...and ofcourse with some good places to play like Papirna (legalized squat), Milada squat and 007 Club (which was recently destroyed by fire, I hope it will be rebuilt soon as this was the base of Czech HC/punk for many years). But the best Czech bands are now in my opinion GRIDE and BALACLAVA - GRIDE play ultrafast hardcore/grind and should finally release some new stuff (but they are extremely unlucky with their releases - only 1 split LP and 1 split EP in 5 years!) and BALACLAVA play powerful old school S.E. HC. Both bands are good friends of us, we like them a lot! Right now I write big Czech scene report, really long, with great part dedicated to history of punk/HC in our part of the world, so if there is any zine in Hungary interested or if you want to read it yourself, then let me know. I hope to get it printed in several zines all over the world. Also check out THE PUBLIC from Slovakia - crazy extreme HC with some quite original parts, they have new LP out, one of the best bands in this part of the world for sure!

8) Please tell me something about Czech Republic! (Not about the music life, rather about the country.)

What do you want to hear? To usual punk ranting like politicians suck, cops suck, system suck... Many times its too big cliche to talk about political issues in punk zines. OK, I will try to tell you something about Czech - as you know, we used to be so called “communist” state till 1989 (like Hungary), then came the change to capitalist democracy with all the usual consequences. I think that the last 10 years have been living in something like “wild capitalism” - I mean, I dont have any ilusions about capitalist system in the West, but atleast they have some protection against its worst forms, the people are usually a bit more persistent, but over here they swallow everything without any resistance (except some ranting in the pub). If you look at countries like France or Italy - the people over there dont have problem to strike if they have their social standarts under danger, over here there are almost no strikes at all, they are seen as something evil, the same goes with demonstrations. Politicians and capitalist can do whatevet they want, they are quite arrogant and dont care about anything. Especially this last government - social democratic one - is the meanest bunch of assholes we ever had probably. Anothe scary thing is the rise of police state - after September 2000 demos and riots against IMF and WB meeting in Prag the cops ask for more power, they want to make stricter rules concerning demonstrations (like they want to ban masking), also they want plastic bullets. Secret cops are infiltrating and monitoring radical leftwing and anarchist activities, its the same like before 1989. Also with continuing racist attacks in our country (just last month was killed by naziskinhead a 30 years old Gypsy - the father of family) the cops monitor and usually stop skinheads gigs, which is just easy tactic for them to show that they do something worthville, but it surely wont stop the attacks and maybe soon we can see them doing the same with our gigs. I dont think that people should be prosecuted by state by the lyrics they shout (even they are racist), because then you must have someone checking out your lyrics and say what is OK and what is not. And thats exactly the same thing we used to have over here before 1989 - state censorship of culture.

Well, it looks probably too pessimistic, but I guess there is always some hope left and that we should just work harder and be more clever than our enemies, then we will accomplish our goals.

9) Do you know any hungarian bands? What do you think about the hungarian underground scene?

I know only very few hungarian bands. Its quite strange that we live so close and yet the communication between our scenes is almost zero. Its great that Bilos from MALIGNANT TUMOUR organised the tour for HUMAN ERROR and DIN ADDICT in Czech and that both bands played on Obscene Fest. I have also seen DAWNCORE in Pilsen last year and NEWSPEAK this year at the same fest. I know also some old hungarian punk bands from old times - like ANARCHIA or AURORA (Jan from AGATHOCLES recorded them for me, he is big fan of old easteuropen punk rock - like myself!) and ofcourse TROTTEL, who used to play in my homwtown several times in early 90s. I have to say that I like HUMAN ERROR (total crust massacre, you ruled on this years Obscene Fest) and new material of DAWNCORE (definitely CATHARSIS influenced) most, also NEWSPEAK were quite good. I am not too big fan of noise/grind, so DIN ADDICT didnt impressed me too much, but I stil like noise like this than some pop punk shit. I think that in general the hungarian scene is much smaller than the Czech one, but I hope it will grow, some of these bands I listed are definitely great and can easily beat down many US/Western often too overrated bands. It is huge handicap to be from easteuropean country, I hope you can overcome it, it is like with everything only about one thing - being really active and honest.

10) Back to the things of the band. Who writes the lyrics and music in the band?

I write both of them, but the way Martin plays his drums often changes the original music a lot.

11) Something about the lyrics? (Important question, please tell me lot of things about the lyrics!)

They usually deal with the human - modern society relationship. They way this system oppress you and want to reduce you only on obedient number in the crowd - or better like the part of the machine, who works exactly within the norms. Most of the lyrics are about issues like control, technology of control, obedience, passivity etc. We have all the lyrics written in Czech language, this is the best way for our full expression, I find most of the lyrics of the bands who are not native English speakers quite boring and cliche. We try to provide translations of our lyrics to English, so feel free to ask about them. By the way, why dont you sing in Hungarian with HUMAN ERROR? I am sure it would be more interesting and original than in English! Many bands sings in their native language it sound fucking great - check out ANTICHRIST or HOMOMILITIA from Poland, LOS CRUDOS, HUASIPUNGO, SIN ORDEN singing in spanish, YACOPSAE and CLUSTER BOMB UNIT from Germany or tons of swedish/finnish crust bands!

12) Please tell me something about your concerts and live gigs! (Where, when, with which bands etc.)

Till now we played around 25 gigs, some of the best were the tour with ANTICHRIST from Poland (6 gigs in Czech, 1 in Poland, ANTICHRIST rule, if you like heavy dark hardcore like the stuff on Prank Records, dont miss them!), another tour with GRIDE (3 gigs in Germany), who used exclusivelly for this tour MINDLOCKs singer Ales, we also played with MINDLOCK in Poland and in Budapest (one of our best gigs - quite crazy, exactly the way we like it!). We supported ZEGOTA in Prag in 007 club too, but some of our wildest shows were the recent ones organised by MINDLOCK people - nonstop stagediving, people rolling on the floor, complete craziness - this summer with FULL BLADDER, MINDLOCK and ILL/SOCIETY and another one with GRIDE, MINDLOCK and HIGHSCORE - great line-up for insane show! In few days we leave for Slovakian tour, we will play 4 gigs there, I hope it will be great again. We would definitely like to play Budapest again, we also got more offers to play in Germany, but there are no exact plans yet, right now we want to concentrate our efforts to our new record.

13)What are you doing between music? (Work? School? Hobby and others?)

The singer Jozka has family, so he is taking care about his daughter, he works in railways and I reads a lot. Also record collecting and endless long hours discussion about records is his big hobby (the same with myself). Drumer Martin plays in another band, he goes to univeristy (politology/journalism), he also sometimes organise gigs here in Brno. Bassplayer Tomas works in laboratory, which takes most of his time as the work is out of Brno, Iguess he has no special hobbies (maybe drinking?). And I am officially unemployed, but unofficially I work in social-ecological organisaton called NESEHNUTI, we organise several campaigns against shit like big shopping malls, highways or animal abuse. I also do zine called HLUBOKA ORBA since 1993 and I am crazy music collector. I also like to watch basebal (live only, I dont have fucking TV). And I also have small garden, where we plant together with my girlfriend potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries etc. - definitely an experience!

14) What do you think about the next things: About drugs? Politics? Womans? Music? Nature? Fanzines? Vegetarian life style?

Drugs - I dont use them, but I am for legalisation of soft drugs immediately, hard drugs later. The war on drugs gives too much power to cops and system and can not solve the problem at all. I think it is everybodys own bussiness what he/she makes with his/her own body and nobody should fucking interfere into it.

Politics - Too complex to answer, but I think everybody should care about the politics, but I dont mean only by watching news, but by participating in some actions especially on the local level, where you can change something.

Women - What do you mean? I am pissed on the way this society often treats women - like some 2nd class citizens good only for cooking, raising children and fucking. How many women are in hungarian government? Over here in Czech none! And they make more than half of the society! It is almost the same in the HC/punk scene - you hardly see any girls playing in bands, doing zines etc., it is a big shame.

Straight Edge - I am S.E. for many years already, it is my personal choice, I find drinking and taking drugs as a waste of the time, I have always some other more important things to do than to sit in the pub. Alcohol/drugs are just easy escape from this society and shitty lives we are living. I also hate the peer pressure like I mean many people dont accept you if you are different and to drink is something like societys norm over here - and I am against norms, thats why I got in to the punk!

Anarchy - it can mean so many things for different people, that I am not too much into discussing it here. I am definitely influenced by some anarchist principles and ideas, but I dont like the current existing anarchist organisations here in Czech. They are quite dogmatic and sometimes promotes senseless violence, I dont like it.

Friendship - the word S.E. bands use quite often.

Nature - hippies likes to use this world! No, seriously, we should protect it and to poison it by chemicals and pave it by concrete, but you know it already.

Music - please dont make me to list even 10% of bands I like to listen, it would easily fill up half of your zine!

Fanzines - I love them! MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL, HEARTATTACK, HELL AND DAMNATION, ENGINE, NO SANCTUARY (r.i.p.), RIPPING THRASH, POSER PUNK (r.i.p.), SHORT FAST AND LOUD, MONKEYBITE (r.i.p.), also some Czech (E.Y.F., P.V.O.S., KOMUNIKACE, IMPREGNATE, DEFENDER, RESKATOR...) and Slovakian (YA BASTA!, SAMBA, LEVANTANE, K.A.Z.) ones rules!

Vegetarian lifestyle - I am vegetarian since 1991 and the other guys I are vegetarians too, so I guess it speaks for itself. If you still eat meat, then try to get more information about the way the dead animal corpses end up on your plate, maybe you will change your opinion. It is absolutely unnecessary to eat meat, the vegetarian food is quite easy to cook and tastes great, so stop the slaughter.

Direct actions - in some urgent cases OK, but sometimes not. I agree with many A.L.F. actions (especially when they liberate animals) or with Sea Shepperd (destroying the ships of whale fishers), but I dont like stupid violence against people and some property destruction is also not always OK. It can be fun to see Mc Donalds restaurants destroyed during some riots (and I have seen it several times), but I am afraid that it has no positive results at all and make us only more isolated and seen as mindless thugs in the eyes of the public. And I am sure that if we want to change things to better, then we just have to gain support of atleast some part of the public - the only alternative is either to give up or to establish dictatorship.

15) Most important future plans?

As I already said - to make new 7”EP and I hope that we will play more gigs also in the abroad in 2002. It would be nice to see our shitty hometown Brno to be more active with new bands, zines or gigs, but it seems like it will always suck over here.

16) Some message to readers of Total Addiction fanzine?

I hope to see more cooperation between hungarian and czech scene, dont just look on U.S. bands as some sort of gods - fuck it, there are great bands everywhere on this planet! And another thing - keep in mind that d.i.y. is the basic rule of real and honest hardcore/punk - it means that we will get just as much as we at first create. So if you complain that your scene sucks and that there are no cool bands, zines, distros or gigs, then get of your ass and start some! OK, enough of my preaching, thanx a lot to you and all the other great people in Budapest who helped us with our gig in your city, take care and all the best in your activities! East European hardcore solidarity!

c/o Filip Fuchs, Grohova 39, 602 00 Brno, Czech Rep.

orba@seznam.cz www.seeyouinhell.kgb.cz