Look around the musical underground and you’ll find a massive variety of thriving styles. Glance at a poster on a sticky venue wall and you’ll find even more ways to describe that music, although admittedly, most tags are throwaway statements designed to make a band fit with an audience rather than find an audience for a band. Unlike those fictitious genres, though, noise-rock is a living, breathing scene, often found lurking under rocks and in the darkened corners of most cities.
It represents a discordant fury, an exorcism of emotion in the most primal form. Without being tied to fast tempos, anger or the predictability of thrash, punk rock or hardcore music, its musical journey can shift in any direction, from a body shaking racket down to the innocuous but menacing hum of a guitar pick-up. The one ingredient holding it all together is an unpleasant tension, and while this awkward balance makes for uneasy listening, it’s also impossible to ignore.
Which brings things nicely along to Amsterdam’s chief noise-rock exponents Gone Bald, who left the cover of their own darkened corner to bask in the spring sunshine and discuss their history, which now extends to ten years of music in the Netherlands after originally coming from Croatia in 1994. Their story is not a simple one either, with singer/guitarist Razorblade Jr. being the sole original member left, meaning the band is now completed by S.Disko on bass, and Bubba on drums.
Why did you choose to live in Amsterdam?
Razorblade: Well it was not my plan. The band started in Zagreb, Croatia at the farewell rehearsal of our previous band Achtung Dichtung because the other two members were leaving for Amsterdam. We decided to swap instruments, and that’s how Gone Bald started, all in one rehearsal. It was so good that suddenly I was very much attached to the moment and people. We’d played together for a long time before but suddenly it was different. The band had originally been just a project to me, but this all happened very fast. I wrote songs that night after the rehearsal, the next day we went to the studio and recorded them, and then the day after that we called the record label before meeting with him. Later he called back and said he was going to release it. It was beautiful!
In three days we had an album and a label, but the drummer and bassist were still leaving for Amsterdam. They’d had been planning the move for about a year, with or without a band, and it left me at a terrible crossroads. Should I stay or should I go?
They were due to leave at 6AM the next morning, and they told me, “If you want to go, we go together and we keep the band. If you don’t want to, we still go.” So I showed up at 5AM after spending the night lying awake thinking about it, and then we hitchhiked for three days to get here. So living in Amsterdam was not my plan, but their decision.
What made them leave and you remain?
R: When we came here things were working out very slowly. We didn’t really know anybody, we didn’t have instruments and we were living very poorly. They had planned it all and they knew what they could expect from the squats, whereas I didn’t know and for me it was really difficult. Eventually the father of the drummer was able to send our instruments via a plane, and then we found some rehearsal space and borrowed amplifiers etc. Then concerts, our first album, the first tour all started to happen so things were changing slowly.
I’m still very sore and unhappy about what they did because they got me here. I am here because of the band not because of myself, and suddenly after around two years they decided to go back. Their private life wasn’t going so well. The money situation was bad, and we didn’t get any formal papers to live, so we had no health insurance etc. Slowly they were deciding to go home, but for me it was completely idiotic because I’m already here suffering for two years trying to make it work. But they began to take a lot of small jobs to save up for studio equipment, and when they got some basic stuff together, they organized a way to return to Zagreb with the equipment. I stayed because returning felt very cowardly to me.
Why did you keep the band name instead of starting fresh?
R: I came here with that band and with the idea that I’m going to do something with that in a completely different environment, and I changed my whole life just for this band, so of course I’m not going to change the band name. All of the songs were mine and I was really pushing it. I believed in this band but they didn’t believe enough and they went back. I do have a small grudge but we are in an okay context now, and they did help record our last studio album in Zagreb.
Was the music scene in Amsterdam good to be in back then?
R: It was very fresh and new. We were just searching for the scene but it was not very comfortable to be honest. It didn’t look very promising in the underground, except that it was so open for all the touring bands playing here. If you want to know about the music scene in Amsterdam, then it was not perfect. But that was one of the points where I thought, “Hey, I have a great band and I’m going to do something good with it.” You could see it as a minus that the underground scene was fucked up but I could see it as a plus. We had a lot more space then. We were good and I knew we were gonna continue and that I would push it. If there are no other good bands in the scene, well that’s their problem, not mine.
Has it improved since?
R: Nah.
Disko: When I got to Amsterdam I was really eager to find the music scene, and of course the underground rock scene I was aiming for, but I didn’t really find much that would appeal to me. One of the things I did find though was Gone Bald. I was in a band called SGP those days and we started organizing shows together. Instead of finding a music scene as such, at least I found one band that I really liked.
Do the fans of other music genres respect Gone Bald?
R: Well it was fantastic the last time we toured in France, and on every single poster we were described as something with ‘Emo’. ‘Emo-rock’, ‘Emo-Core’, ‘Emo-Jazz’, ‘Emo-Noise-Rock’, ‘Emo-Prog-Rock-Noise’. So with no problem at all, we can sneak into different scenes and hook people into other genres with at least one aspect of our music.
When touring other countries do you discover music scenes that you would prefer to be in?
R: We still haven’t been everywhere we want to. We have been on some fantastic tours around Europe, but that’s nothing compared to what’s left in the world. We’ve played in France, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland and some more, but we don’t really know what’s going on in Italy or Denmark.
France is really good for noise-rock, though. Austria too. We had a very good crowd there, but we want to go everywhere. We are so dedicated and I’m so grateful that after ten years I’m playing with members who care as much as I do. These guys will sacrifice their jobs or something so we can go on tour, not stop somewhere and write songs. We’ll write songs on the way.
My point is that I’m here only because of this band. They have lives here and jobs, whereas I’m still only dedicated to this. But they are more dedicated than any of the previous members of Gone Bald.
What drives the lyrics on Gone Bald albums?
R: Basically personal life experiences, my attitude towards the world, and the world’s attitude towards me. How I see things and how I feel things. The second thing is that I’m very influenced by the movies, but I only take situations that are very familiar to me. Like heroic and noble situations that I can use, and I put myself into that perspective. Sometimes if I find a good line, title or quote, maybe I’m going to use it. Not just if it sounds good, but because I can relate to it. It’s personal, though, and I’m satisfied so far.
On last album Soul Vacation in Rehab Clinic there is quite a lot of melody with strict structures. How much more chaotic are you live?
Disko: Well we always write songs very fast, so when people see us live it’s normally 90% new songs. We currently have enough material ready for two albums. It’s strictly chaotic in one sense that most people don’t know most of the songs.
R: In terms of performance anything can happen. We don’t have a plan for each gig.
Disko: We don’t even have a setlist. We just do whatever pops into our mind, so if that involves a 30-minute noise session…
R: If it involves complete chaos between the audience and us, or us and the audience it’s all very possible. We just go by feeling. That’s the purest form of expression.
Disko: We basically just play the songs, but it’s really nice to be able to do just what feels appropriate. If things go wrong, sometimes there’s no urge to make a structured gig so we can just take it anywhere.
What kind of reaction do you get from audiences?
Disko: On tour it varies by night. In Vienna for instance we had this amazing crowd who went really nuts. They looked the same as the people the night before but they reacted totally differently.
What happens if people don’t get it?
R: We just do the same as always.
Do you never try to be wilder and win them over?
R: That’s a good point. It happened in Nurenburg with De Heideroosjes, a Dutch punk band who everyone knew. No-one knew Gone Bald and most of them really didn’t care. Then after our set, our friend asked us what happened. He was confused because he expected something like what had happened in Vienna. He didn’t understand why we were so cool and didn’t do anything to grab the attention of all the punk fans. Well we’d already been up on stage for half an hour playing our hearts out, but if the audience don’t give anything extra, why would we give anything extra back? I was not emotionally or physically pushed to the point that I could be more open with them.
How do you feel the music impacts on someone else’s life?
R: This was the first time we put the lyrics in with the CD after seven albums, and I’m very happy about that. Nobody from the “organization” of Gone Bald had ever pushed to make lyrics available, but Disko just said it and I thought, “why not?” I don’t think too much about their impact, but they are there and people can read them, and from the time since the album came out I’ve had some very good reactions.
In fact I’ve had reactions from people who’ve known Gone Bald for a long time and now they know what I’m singing about because at the concerts you cannot hear that. So the reactions are very positive. With the last album, about 80% of people who spoke to me about lyrics said they were so sentimental, and basically love songs, but really twisted love songs. Great, give me as many reactions as possible.
We affect people with the music first, then the lyrics second.
You also DJ on Radio 100 each Wednesday?
R: Yeah, for years. Now they give me two hours and it’s much more relaxed. I was bringing 25-30 CDs every time, and I always announce bands playing around in Amsterdam so if I play a couple of songs and talk a little that can be around 25 minutes. Now I have more time and I’m really happy with that.
What are the future plans of Gone Bald?
R: Touring. Making albums. We want to find a record label that can provide the basic stuff so that whenever we want to release something we will, with good distribution and a little help to organize gigs. Interstellar Records have been really good, but collectively, people are starting to feel they’re too small for us. They can’t provide all that we need because they’re too small. They’re great people and would do anything for Gone Bald but they don’t have the resources. I had the idea to make a trilogy, but when I told them, they immediately said they didn’t have enough money. So we want a label that likes our ideas and just does it.
Disko: Unfortunately there’s a shortage of money in the underground music scene. A label like Interstellar does what it can, but unfortunately we’re not a top 40 band. We’d love to be a top 40 band playing this style of music, and we’d happily go play Top of the Pops, but so far they haven’t invited us.
But our next project will be the Exotic Klaustrofobia EP. We made a studio recording one month ago which is the basis of the EP, but we’re going to get back in to record some more, as well as fill it up with live recordings. We’ll release it on a small scale, which will hopefully keep us satisfied until we have time and money for the next studio album.
Steven McCarron
This is the full transcript of an interview which was originally published in the Amsterdam Weekly on June 9, 2004.
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