EMBRACE DESTRUCTION interview

We conducted an interview with beatdown hardcore band EMBRACE DESTRUCTION on January 7, 2011.

Thank you for taking this interview, guys. Please, introduce yourself.

Hi all. We are EMBRACE DESTRUCTION from Italy and The Netherlands. Thank you for having us and for giving us your attention.

Milano, Torino, Caserta, Amsterdam. Where are you basically based?

We do not have a real hometown. Sometimes can be considered hard, but we find it totally fine. During these years of touring we in fact met lots of people and visited allot of countries and cities and it is nice to have several hometowns spread all over Europe. Also the concept of hometown for a band like ours is pretty reductive.

Please describe your local hardcore scene. Name you best mates in the scene.

Mostly we have several hardcore scenes, almost all of them are competitive and contributes to keep this music alive. We have tons of friends but for sure we can mention NO SECOND CHANCE, MY CITY BURNING, ENEMY GROUND, PHOENIX ASHES, ARCADYA LAKE, NOVEL OF SIN, FATAL MOVE, UNITED BLOOD, NASTY, WITHIN THE PAIN, RISE AFTER DEFEAT, CURSE THIS OCEAN, FACE YOUR ENEMY, STILL IN DA GAME, DA4TH, BRING ON THE BLOODSHED, ALL HEADS RISE, SO CALLED CELESTE, EARN YOUR SCARS, and many many more.

You formed EMBRACE DESTRUCTION in the end of 2008, but you have played in many different bands. Please tell us about pre-EMBRACE DESTRUCTION era.

Yes indeed. We all had different experiences in bands metal and hardcore such as K-AGAIN, NECROTORTURE, WOPTIME, SAMARITAN, UNTIL WE BLEED and WITH PRIDE. Mostly we always played and toured in different bands but we never had
the chance to play together so we took our chance in 2008 when by coincidence we were everybody left with some spare time. ED was a side project but then things took off pretty fast and now we do not have time not even for ED ;).

What’s your definition of “mosh beatdown attitude”?

Mosh attitude is for sure to be loyal to a certain style of Hardcore started from MADBALL, MERAUDER and developed by HATEBREED and BORN FROM PAIN in the late 90’s. Simple music that alternate fast parts to slow parts with a touch of 2 step that is always welcome. Simple riffs that people can remember and dance having fun together with the band during the live shows. Beatdown attitude instead is the part of our music were we try to insert our passion for Rap (1987-1994) and for “satanic” metal riffs that make people go up and down and transform every dancefloor into a
battlefield.

Some might say that beatdown hardcore is a little too pissed off. How do you relate to it? How are you privately? Are you angry, dangerous bunch of guys we should be scared of? ;)

Well…everybody can have an opinion. My opinion is that is reductive to put Beatdown Hardcore in a box. You do not need to be a tough guy to play this music …not at all,you just need to like it. For sure I can understand that there are too many fans of Al Pacino who think to live in a Scarface movie and this actually make me laugh
all the time. Also there is a common tendency to act like gangs and also this makes me laugh. I lived in Los Angeles myself and i can tell you that you can pretend how much you want but there is nothing really pretty in
being in a gang. Lastly there is also the tendency in acting like mafia guys…now…about this topic…we all come from Italy even if we live in different countries and i can tell you that there is nothing funny about that.
Don’t play Italian if you are not Italian. We are not dangerous and you should not be scared at all, actually
people have a lot of fun at our shows, we are trying to bring back the fun in this “tough” music, of course is not cabaret, it is pissed off music played by pissed off guys, but in our case we are pissed off with the social system and the monetary system…so no need to pretend to be in a gang for us.

How has your message evolved over the past 3 years?

Not much. We are still loyal to the message we started to spread in “Kingdom of Torture” and we will keep spreading it also in our 4th album “The Empire”. We do not want to get caught in conspiracy theories too much we prefer to call for the intervention and awareness. For sure our target is the monetary system that is enslaving our kind, we are now glad to see movements like Noppes and the Brixton Pund and we will support all these alternative valutas.

Urban Discipline Records called it quits in October 2011. Now the label is alive and running. What was that all about?

Well, you should ask it to them :) for us it was a bad news for sure as we had a great partnership with them, so we moved on with Strikedown but when UD told us they were back in business we found a way to remain with them as well and we couldn’t be more happy. Both labels are true HC labels and we are proud to be part of them and we hope that what we achieve will help them to continue promoting this music. They both have all our respect.

How was the signing with Strikedown Records? How did it help you to spread your wings?

It was a good feeling. When we remained with no label we spread the word a bit and we got offers from quiet established labels, we choose SD cause we found in them something that we were missing from a long time. Passion. Also it is always better to be a key band in a “small” label then “a” band in a bigger one. SD did a real great job for us together with UD and we are happy about our choice and we will keep this labels as long as they want to keep us with them.

You third album, “Reign Of Terror”, was released last year. Are you writing the next one already? Will you stick to your current label?

Yes we are, we have 8 songs ready at the moment. The material is more rough than ever, there will be allot more rap and allot more ignorance in the new songs..for sure it will be a “live set” album. Yes for sure we will stick with the current labels except for some last minute surprise. We already fixed the studio and the producer. After 3 albums with the mighty Danny the d Giordana (Hatebreed,Madball) we will do this album with Stefan Van Neerven (ex BORN FROM PAIN) at the Heartwork studios in Heerlen The Netherlands in August 2012. The release date still has to be decided though.

What festivals will you be attending this year?

We played several already. Actually especially in Belgium and Germany all the shows are festivals as the line ups are always 6 or 7 bands long. We will play some festivals in Holland in April like the Save the Queen Fest and the Cross the Line fest, then some in Belgium like the MOsh it or Die 3 and the NWO fest,The Hardcore Help Foundation Benefit in London, the BDHW fest in Germany and we will probalby play the Zlotow Open Air in Poland. For the rest for sure more will come, but we never program festivals really :) so we will evaluate the offers and then we will decide which one we can play.

Please name your favourite hardcore bands.

Wow…this can take long. RAW POWER, SICK OF IT ALL, AGNOSTIC FRONT, MADBALL, BIOHAZARD, HATEBREED, BORN FROM PAIN, MERAUDER, VISION OF DISORDER, TERROR, NO TURNING BACK, ENEMY GROUND, CRAWLSPACE, CONGRESS, SENTENCE, RETALIATE, SURGE OF FURY, KNUCKLEDUST, SIX FT DITCH, BROWBEAT, KERNEL 0, FALLBRAWL, ALL FOR NOTHING, NASTY, NO SECOND CHANCE, STANDARD, CDC, UNIT 731, COPYKILL, PROVIDENCE, BACKFIRE, STRENGTH APPROACH, and many many many more….

Besides hardcore, what music do you listen to these days?

Lots of Noisecore, of course Metal, lots of Rap, some oldschool stoner, some motown, 80’s music in general especially DURAN DURAN.

What do you do in your private lives? What kind of job do you do and how do you relate to it?

We all work our asses off. There is no mainstream in HC and for sure no money. I am a Team Manager in an American company here in Amsterdam, Dome is a designer in a studio in Milan, Pelle is a cook in Turin, Klem is a tattoo artist in Caserta, Massy has his own smal woodworks company and so on. We try to do our best to combine work and music but it’s really difficult. That’s why we have so many fill in.

How much time do you spend working on the band?

Me personally allot. Especially the first 3 years i can tell you it was all i was doing a part from work. Now it is a bit better as we created a certain reputation so the booking is not taking me so much time as before. Anyway we all do spend time in the band as we do everything ourselves. Website, designs, merch, videos, booking, tour, finance… it is rewarding though ;)

What are you most looking forward to in the future as a band? What future do you see for EMBRACE DESTRUCTION?

A stable line up :) . As i said due to our working problems we never can make 2 shows with the same line up and sometime we need to cancel shows cause we do not have members enough to play. It is a bit frustrating and we hope to find a young fix member soon. Anyhow we will never thank enough our fill in for all the help they give us. The future for sure says a 4 weeks European Tour for the last promotion of Reign of Terror this spring and the recordings of our 4th album this summer. Then we do not know…we are old and we do not want to become the new this or the new that…we just hope to have the possibility to keep doing quality shows in quality line ups and having fun.

Thank you! Feel free to tell our readers anything you want.

Not much…try to think with your own mind and crave for alternative sources of information. Do not think you will be a rock star with HC cause it will never happen,just have fun and cherish these moments. Thank you for the space you gave us and for your attention…0-1-3-4 is on the move..brutality will arrive to your town…sooner or later :)

“Reign of Terror” album teaser:

“Social Extermination” video: