The last time I talked to these guys, I already knew we would meet again. THE LOWEST recently arrived back from their second European tour and I took the chance to sit down with them and sum it up a little. Read up their nice report below to find out about their newest experience and plans for the future.
Hey there! It’s been a while since we last talked, huh? :)
We’re here to serve a little update on what’s going on in your camp and, most of all,, review the tour you’ve just come back from. What are your general thoughts on your Winter 2013 Western European run?
Hi, so we are back to normal band life, playing rehearsals and chilling after the tour. During those days in van we were talking about next tour and made songs for upcoming 7’’. Tour was great, it was so cool to play in so many great places like in Leuven in Belgium, venue in right in the middle of old town. We meet so many cool people, high five for all of the people who made our show, feed us and let us stay at their place. Let’s say that this tour was just great. The only downside was that we all got sick the last day in the van.
Oh, too cold?
I think we fell into the trap, because weather was very good, sunny and warm, so we were hanging out just in blouse or t shirt. Pawel the singer was a first victim, just in the middle of tour he had some headache, high temperature etc. He spend all of free time in sleeping bag trying to recover. Playing 30 minute show was really hard so big respect for him. Disease was with us for long time, thanks god rest of us got sick after the last concert.
I hope most of you have recovered by now.
Alright, let’s go back to the first day of the adventure. Warsaw marked the first blast of the trek. Our local crowd is very demanding :), sometimes I think all you need is a tiny club in order to force people to come closer and a lot of booze to make them moving :D. How was it?
So I’m sick again, shitluck.
I learned not to expect anything from people. I understand that people are not that much into moshing. Warsaw is crazy, so many gigs so many good bands are playing here so crowd is demanding. Huge problem is that there are no new people, and those who found hardcore are not into having fun during gigs because of something? I would really know the answer, I remember that for me every gig was chance to mosh and stage dive. But be honest the only thing that’s maters to me is that people are actually at the venue. In Warsaw we played on Wednesday, there more than 120 people, what can I expect more?
Nice. Apart from band members, who else jumped in the van after that gig?
Our mate Janusz who was our merch boy, big up for him. Taking care about all distro is a huge pain in the ass, he dealt with it excellently, again big up. It was great to hang out with him.
Did you drag all your equipment along? Or did you rent some of it?
Yup, amps, cabs, all of that stuff was ours. Only thing we rented was the van.
One day after the Warsaw gig you made it to Poznan for a party with THE THRONE and RETARDED. What did you find there? How was your second show of the tour?
Gig itself was very similar to the one we played in Warsaw, venue full of people, great atmosphere, maybe more people was moshing and doing stage diving. It was a surprise for me that so many people came, just great! Rozbrat is a great place, before the gig we make some workout session in their gym and ate great food which they have prepared for us, would love to be there again. That’s what i like the most about touring is to meet new people and talk with them, I remember that in kitchen I spent a good hour chatting and joking!
Nice. Another day (Friday) brought a different crowd, I guess. Dresden hosted lots of great bands like ABLAZE, BLACKSTONE, BRIDGES LEFT BURNING and IN OTHER CLIMES. Did the weekend start with a bang?
Yeah crowd was kinda different but who cares, after all we all are hc kids. We arrived to the spot few hours too early, so we went for little sightseeing, city makes a very big impression, love it. I’m not the biggest history freak but knowing about bombing of Dresden by RAF in 1945 I was kinda shocked how good this city looks like. We played at Chemiefabrik, cool place, many people came, bands were good. What I like about playing our gigs is when the spoken part starts, it’s great that Pawel have so many things to say. After every break with some message people are more pissed off and more into doing some evil stuff on the dance floor. After the show we moved to sleeping place to rest before next day on the road. We had no luck because hour after us IN OTHER CLIMES came, they were very loud. They blamed us for the lack of space for sleep (we were sleeping 6 on 4 sleeping places). After good 30 minutes of chaos I came out to ask them to be quiet because we would love to sleep. They told me that they fuck it, don’t care and came there to party, to sleeping place, not the club. What a fucking peasant, hopefully we won’t share stage with those clowns ever again.
Wow! Sounds like fun :) And I was pretty sure you’re the best mates with those guys.
Alright, Berlin was next. NOTHING, STARKEATHER and DERBE LEBOWSKI on stage. Was it a party time?
Berlin is the place to be! We had plan to ride there ASAP, our friends from Warsaw arrived there to chill for a weekend and for our gig. We made some vinyl shopping session walking and chatting at Kreuzberg. Good time, good memories! Place we were playing, squat which actually is 100% legal because punks own the place, they bought it :D I need to give a shout out to Lenin, actually not Vladimir but our host who was more than kind for us, food there is top notch, vegan paradise! Like at typical Saturday there was like 6 hardcore/punk gigs at that time in Berlin but more than 100 people came what can be considered a success! It’s hard for me to judge our set because during it I’m kinda disconnected from the world, some people have known our lyrics, that’s uber cool. After the show there was huge party coz’ Lenin had his birthday, bad news is that I’m straightedge and i went to sleep in our warm room, i was really wasted after whole day. They partied till 5 in the morning… I LOVE SCHERER 8 SQUAT!
Are you trying to say straight edge can’t party like hell? :)
I know from my own experience that most of them appreciates the quiet places and are more antisocial :D But there are some exception to that rule and some of them are party beasts :D
You had a perfect chance to party with the real wolves the next day. The Münster show featured WOLFxDOWN, whose name has become widely known recently. Did you guys know each other before that concert?
Nah not really, we had some small talk before and after the gig. It’s great that there are still bands that’s stick so much to the ideas, I can judge that by their merch and lyrics, I did not understand a word in German. I have the impression that real message it sidelined, whole vagan, edge, whatever thing. Years back every front man was spreading the word. I don’t care just tell me your opinion from the stage, you can be anarchist or pro capitalist just share your beliefs tell why do you think that way and don’t be dull. It was a real pleasure to watch WOLFxDOWN on stage, great band, wish them all the best.
Do you get angry with the classic edge bands for reuniting despite the fact not all of band members being sXe? Any examples? :)
I’m chilled out about it, but not when you were like hardline edge band that was about making the world better place with all that message. If they are I don’t care, they can play their tours but I won’t be at the show for sure.
So what does being Straight Edge mean to you?
It’s about being fair with yourself, when I was smoking herbs and doing lot of alcohol I wasn’t, it’s something that’s keeps my away from all the shitty things. It’s also about not being douchebag who tells you what to do and what not, every should find inner peace. I had problem with pot so I turned edge, if you can handle that stuff and you are not like zombie everyday high five.
What about the rest of your friends? Weren’t they temped to step in to a coffeeshop in the Netherlands? :) You had a perfect change on April 3rd, right? How do you remember that day in Hengelo?
Yeah when we were Hengelo and we were chilling in this city it was so cool, weather was warm and sunny, we did our workout session during which some local dudes offered us some steroids :D We were at a coffeeshop and it was strange experience. On the housing projects buying weed looks different as I remembered there was no lady behind the glass and there were no chance to pay with credit card, but people inside were similar to Polish, full zombie mode. Place we played at was also our flat to sleep, really cool place to be, judging by the tags on the walls a lot of well know band were there. Gig itself was good, people were having fun, for me it was great. I will remember when we were chilling on some bench near some single-family houses, it was so perfect, quiet, people on bikes, I’m sure that all of us have thought back then to move to Hengelo and stay there.
You had a 300 km rip ahead of you. The next stop was Leuven in Belgium. It was your exclusive Belgian gig, right?
Not sure what exclusive supposed to mean but it was our only show there :D It was so cool that we had so few kilometers to ride each day, when we was touring Ukraine we could ride for 700km with shitty roads, now it was 2-3 hours and we are there! Leuven was another city worth seeing, a lot of young people because it’s a student city, once again weather was great and large group of people were chilling in the old city on which our club was. From the window behind the scene you could see main square of the old town, only weird thing was that venue was really small, but it turned out that that all of the people that get in were getting wild. After the show we had some little accident with some Polish junkie that was trying to be friends with us, silly shit :D After the show we went to sleep to our host, in house there was a lot of vegan food waiting for us, mom of the took good care of us. It was great to be there, if it were not enough good she made great breakfast for us in their garden. Thanks for Leuven people for everything!
Sounds nice :)
I’m really curious about your Parisian show with COWARDS and DEAD COWBOY’S SLUTS. How did you like it? Did you have some time to chill out in my beloved Montmartre?
Yeah we did some quick tour around the city before the gig, and let’s say that I have mixed feelings, on the one hand city is impressive on the other it’s a big metropolis along with all the crap. When we arrived to the club I was bit amazed, it was typical cafeteria, very well managed let’s say. On the upper floor you have cafeteria/bar, after the doors there was some performance and gig in the basement, three different things in one place at the same time. To be honest I didn’t check every band, it’s hard to do that kind of thing, maybe it’s rude of me, but I preferred to walk the streets listening to the music player. After the show our host took care of us, we is a one cool dude. We were able to see all well-known places in Paris like Louvre, Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame. What was funny that our host was looking like typical skinhead, but actually he is some kind of lawyer, it’s great that people despite some kind of aging are still active in scene, doing gigs playing in so many bands. Another day was kinds start of bad weather, but who cares, we went to another city.
Yup, 400 kilometers to Mannheim. No joke. Any moments worth recalling?
From the road? Gates on highway and high fees :) Seriously, 400km on good roads and you are there.
And the gig?
Gig was specific, it was the only one with a small number of people, huge advantage of this gig was guy with a lot of good records whom we bought a lot of good records. I think that it’s worth to say few words about German sympathy for communism and sickle and hammer. It wasn’t first time that we have seen that kind of shit but squat Juz was full of it. I have big hopes that this is due to their ignorance and lack of knowledge this shit pisses me of, I’m against racism, homophobia and all the negative stuff and I’m playing in place that people have no problem with death camps that are still in communist counties, they have no problem with deportations that this ASSHOLE Stalin made (I feel bed to wrote name of this piece of shit with a capital but after all its a name), he moved like more than 3 million people to Siberia. Ok I wont get into history but I hope so that they will learn history of shit they support. Everything else was cool, people we meet, the building was also great, they have their own gym in the basement that is adapted to the MMA trainings.
I’ve seen a World War II research that lots of teenagers (!) say there can be no forgiveness for Germany. Do you think the Polish nation will ever be able to fully forgive Germans the first half of the last century?
Sure maybe very few still have something against Germany and their people, but that’s stupid as hell, they are still stuck in the past. German people are not proud of their history and learned a lesson, would be cool if they will get it that Nazism wasn’t only shitty thing that happened to counties of Europe. Let’s change the topic, I’m not any specialist and yes I love German people :D
Germans are often more helpful and respectful then a lot of Poles, right? :D
OK, you hit Öhringen on International Women’s Day :) Did you celebrate it?
I do not know if I have an opinion on this topic, but that’s can be right :)
Wow I didn’t knew that it was Women’s Day, shit hopefully my girlfriend did not knew either. Öhringen was something new, it wasn’t big city like we played before, it was a small town what was cool. Once again weather was great so before the gig we did some stroll around the town, it was nice to sit by the stream of water :) The gig was in Youth Center, it is sad that in Poland not enough attention is paid to children, there they can hang out together, play billiards, throw darts, definitely cool. Even though it wasn’t the biggest town, a lot of people showed up, which was awesome.
Your last concert abroad took place in Prague. How do you find the city?
City is great no doubt, before every Fluff fes I stop there. Before the gig we visited Loving Hut to eat some vegan food, one in the shopping center rocks, you can make your own set! Club in which we played is located in the middle of the park which is awesome. In the summer time before the Fluff Fest I was there for Warm Up show, the atmosphere is worth to be there. It was funny because 30 minutes before the gig club was nearly empty and we were surprised how fast it get full, playing show at Prague in this place is something that we could do again soon! After the gig we decided that if it’s our last day abroad we should go somewhere for the party, so we went to the disco to the city center. On our way we passed many weird things, like hookers offering nasty things, drug-dealers selling stuff without any embarrassment or junkie spots near the central railway station, let’s say that those few experience changed a little bit my opinion about this beautiful city. It was kinda sad to move back to Poland, last day on road is never pleasant…
How did people welcome you back in Poland?
I think that one can say that the turnout was very good, keeping in mind that day before there was some incident with some nationalist douche-bags there was a lot of people. I have not written about it but the sickens of our singer Paweł was at its peak, for few days it was hard for him to sing but after gig in Wrocław I thought that he will puke. I think that’s syndrome of return from the tour, sickness that occurred in the bus and bad weather, meant that we had a little less power to play. Despite Sunday many people came and we played as best we could! Poles have a tendency to complain, but how can you be positive when you are abroad and weather is perfect and you are coming back and temperature is 10°C colder and it’s raining, Poland welcomed us not nice. Right after the gig we went to Warsaw, few hours in the bus, unpacking our stuff to our rehearsal joint and drive everybody to his place was hardcore. I remember that next day I had to go to work but I felt so extremely bad that I took one more day free from work…
Looking back at the whole trek, what venues and locations impressed you the most? Which flashbacks from this tour will stay in your memory?
Best venue was Berlin, to be honest every place was more than cool, but Berlin is a place to be. Big shout-out to Lenin, I’ve heard a lot good things about this guy but the way he dealt with us, delicious dinner, breakfast, name of band on doors of our room and just hosting as its best! I will remember incident with IN OTHER CLIMES, I understand that tour is a great chance to party but for God’s sake not in flat where 3 other bands are doing their best to regenerate before another gig. Big props goes to organizer of our gig in Dresden, he helped us a lot. I will remember quiet and beautiful Hengelo, NL. I will remember gig in Netherlands because of good set played by STRIKING JUSTICE, vocalist of the band did our gig, big up! It was also awesome to play tree gigs with VENGEANCE TODAY, good boys and band worth support! Maybe that will sound cheaply but every gig and city we visited was great. Being in van with people that you appreciate so much, that’s are you friends, I will try not to forget those moments. Peace!
Which gigs did you perform as a “headliner”? :)
Almost all, that’s means playing late and waiting for your turn! It was tiring after few gigs, but on the other hand it was some kind of appreciation for our band for which many thanks.
The “King Of Pain” video summed up your previous run. Any chances for a similar video this time?
Nah before this tourI think that one can say that the turnout was very good, keeping in mind that day before there was some incident with some nationalist douche-bags there was a lot of people. I have not written about it but the sickens of our singer Paweł was at its peak, for few days it was hard for him to sing but after gig in Wrocław I thought that he will puke. I think that’s syndrome of return from the tour, sickness that occurred in the bus and bad weather, meant that we had a little less power to play. Despite Sunday many people came and we played as best we could! Poles have a tendency to complain, but how can you be positive when you are abroad and weather is perfect and you are coming back and temperature is 10°C colder and it’s raining, Poland welcomed us not nice. Right after the gig we went to Warsaw, few hours in the bus, unpacking our stuff to our rehearsal joint and drive everybody to his place was hardcore. I remember that next day I had to go to work but I felt so extremely bad that I took one more day free from work… we decided that there is no need to take video camera, you know we have mosh, typical hardcore video already. We did a lot of work to get that much material from last tour, and there is no need to have two similar video clips. But we are thinking about vid/peo clip to one of the songs from the upcoming 7′, hopefully we will post it in one year from now. We are thinking about something more demanding, and that kind of stuff can take a lot of time.
How did the merch sales go?
Let’s say we are satisfied, almost all of our stuff get sold out, maybe we could get more t-shirts, but let this be a lesson for the next time. As far as I know we as a band run out of vinyl, there are some beanies still left, but weather changed and they will wait till next winter probably. We are thinking about new designs for our next tour.
Alright. Has something changed regarding your side projects? Any new bands featuring members of THE LOWEST?
Sure, our drummer is still pushing forward SAILORS GRAVE, if you are into metal-core you should check it. All of us are fully focused on THE LOWEST, it might sounds silly because it’s not much of work that people see but every day we spend our time discussing the band stuff, we are doing new songs, its time consuming. I would love to play some in some band like TRASH TALK / NATURAL LAW / OMEGAS, but I have too much shit to care about. Only our drummer have that much love for the music and time that he is doing SAILORS GRAVE, please check those dudes!
Yup, I know them pretty well. I know they destroyed the stage at the recent show with BLEEDING THROUGH :)
Alright, closing up the subject of your recent tour, tell me what are some of the pros about it. Does it give you more inspiration for your music? What is the purpose of touring?
I can speak only for myself but for me it’s all about seeing different places, meeting people, to be able to see how people live their lives. You know I think that those kind of things is what can makes you grow. And when you can do that kind of things for free, with your good friends I see no bad side of touring. To be honest I try to travel as much as its possible in year, tours are another great chance to see the world not from the point of view of a tourist but from inside a little bit. About inspiration for music, when you are in country like Russia or Ukraine where average gross salary is 1/10 of people form Netherlands you can get a lot of inspiration to move on with our lyrics and message, it’s completely fucked up to see such a contrast, almost everything that you see abroad is at some degree different and may lead you to some kind of reflections.
Is it possible to discover new things in your home country?
By the way, what are your touring plans for the coming months?
Yup sure, a lot of things happening now in Poland, radicalization, national movement is becoming more popular, main problem for some people is In-vitro and homosexual people and and so on, I think that wave of crisis is coming now to us with all the shit with it…
It’s hard to say in detail but we are planning two shows in Germany on the way to Denmark, we would love to play in Copenhagen, been there once for a week and I love the city and hate their prices :D Next three or four gigs in Sweden, never been there, so I’m stoked about trip there! From Sweden we will sail to Finland, then Estonia, Latvia, Kaliningrad, maybe Gdańsk. We would love to play more shows but work and daily duties do not allow this.
I’m so glad you’re trying to squeeze in another run. After all, it’s everything what is important :)
No local shows?
At the very beginning we decided not to be that kind of band that plays local shows every month or two. I think it’s paying off, on our last gig at squat Przychodnia there was so many people, for that kind of show it was much much more than average. Maybe we will play some shows in Poland during warm days but we are still talking about it, as soon as we will have some information we will share it on our Facebook profile.
What Polish bands give you hope for the future of Polish hardcore? What’s on top in your national music player lately? :)
Big problem of Polish bands is that they are rooted to our homeland. I would love to see more bands storming Europe, PLHC is strong and we could easily be a stronger player as a country. Poland is full of good bands, and shit I regret the most is that they record good material and disappear after a few months and during those months they do not play to many gigs and shit like that. At the moment main source of good bands is Warsaw, bands like REALITY CHECK, IRON TO GOLD, GOVERNMENT FLU, BULLET BELT or CAST IN IRON, list could be longer. Band from other parts of Poland that I support and I feel that they are good are LAST DAYZ, CALM THE FIRE, DESPERATE TIMES or IDENTITY. It’s hard to decide which band I like the most, I wrote all of whose are worth checking.
Any upcoming gigs you’ll be attending?
BAD BRAINS in Berlin, Blood On the Dancefloor series is coming back to life, it’s a local thing with Polish bands, imp stoked to see SICKOIDS in Warsaw, and gig of HOUNDS OF HATE and VIOLENT REACTION, Fluff and A$AP Rocky :)
Yup, I guess I see you in Rokycany then :)
Ok, let’s get to the point. You mentioned your new EP. Tell me more about it.
In my opinion it’s gonna be better material than what we did on our first EP. And it’s not like I feel I need to write that because of some kind of promotion. During the process 3/4 of songs has landed in the trash and we picked our favorites. I do not want to reveal how many songs there will be, let’s keep that kind of secret. What can I share is that out message won’t change a bit. There are still thinks that we don’t accept and we feel that we should tell it loud. It’s not cool that unemployment is so high in European countries, that during the crisis group that is most affected are everyday 9:00 to 5:00 workers or those who even don’t have any job. People were tricked with lie that higher school provides them with the future and it turned out to not to be true at all. Big group of people are working on contracts that won’t ever provide healthcare. When it gets worse people stop to think rationally, they see enemies in people that they don’t understand, they grow in strength and begin to act. For those people problem is in unknown, unbelievers, homosexuals, other races. The bad part of it is that it’s gonna be even worse, looking at how counties are controlled I see not hope for improvement of the situation, shit that kind of stuff is depressing, so after all THE LOWEST didn’t turned into any posi band :D
Don’t you think positive attitude can have a powerful influence on how you fight with wrong things around us?
Seeing things, and having opinion about certain shit do not mean that you should be overcome by that. I remember that there was a time when I was packed with anger on all that surrounded me, that kind of attitude can gets you nowhere or more accurately to some mental hospital. It’s funny because people that don’t know me well may think that I’m nothing more than typical complainers, when something bothers me I don’t think much before I will share that kind of feeling with people but this does not mean that I’m dying because of how pissed of I’m. That can creates some kind of image of negative dude, I tend to rarely to be sad and rather I try to appreciate and enjoy with what I have. This may sound as if it spoke of some freak but for me it obvious that if you are good people also are good for you, not in every situation but it pays off. Every of us creates his own environment on which we have the greater influence than he think. In life it’s not about to be with him dissatisfied but to enjoy it as much as its possible but under no circumstances that can mean life in ignorance or indifference to what surrounds us, we have to care because who else if we won’t.
With positive thinking you can fall into a trap of not seeing bad side of life, that’s not the point, exactly like falling in the depression being overwhelmed but how things are fucked up. We have to be in the middle to enjoy life and work on it.
Yup, I’m definitely not into going to extremes.
Ok, I can’t skip out on this question. What about your full length album? When’s the time for the big release? :)
Actually, we were thinking about full length album at first, but we decided to postpone it and first release 7’’. It might sounds absurd and I don’t know if its popular among bands but we are doing songs for EP and LP at the same moment, we have already few song for LP. When you are trying to make some kind of concept album where everything is consistent it becomes clear that this will take some long time. Another EP is some kind of compromise, we do not want to do a long break between releases. Giving any date would be silly, but let’s keep thumbs up that it will be first part of 2014.
Cool. I’m looking forward to check out some more updates from you guys.
Well.. I wish all the best for the rest of the year and I guess we’ll be forced to do another ‘check in’ somewhere around Q1 2014 :) It’s always a pleasure.
Feel free to add your last words and take care!
Feel free to ask the band about whenever you want. Last words will be thanks for this interview and big thanks to people that struggled through it all reading it. Peace.
Live pics from Warsaw by Fisty Photography and Janek Fronczak.
Live pic from Poznan by Wojciech Augustyniak.
Live pics from Prague by Hlava Derava.
The rest of the pics by THE LOWEST.
