INTERVIEW        Previous        Next

Date: 1993
Questions by: Joni (FIN)
Appeared in: ?

01. You have played over ten years as a band, would you tell about the highlights and "lowlights" of your career ?
02. The name "The Dirty Scums" sounds quite simple, even a little bit stupid. Have you ever thought to change the name ?
03. How would you describe your music ? Influences ?
04. Do you play similar style as in the beginning, or has your style changed somehow ?
05. What about the lyrix ? I think you're not singing so political lyrix (based on the "Up and down on you"-EP) ?
06. All the records you have done before are released by your own label "Dirty Records". Was it hard to sell records/tapes and look for distributors all the time ?
07. How did the co-working with Incognito Records start ? Can we hear more records of yours released by Incognito ?
08. Why there's a Ramones-medley on the EP ? What do you like about the Ramones ?
09. I suppose having fun is an important part of your life. So what do you think about alcohol/drugs ? What is the attitude to drugs in Belgium ?
10. How is it to live in Belgium ? Problems with neo-facists ?
11. Punkscene in Belgium ? I haven't heard so many Belgian bands, are there a lot ? Gigs ? Do people drink a lot at gigs like in Finland ?
12. Are you "a legend" in Belgium ? What do the punks in Belgium think about you ?
13. Do you have jobs ? What do you think about working ?
14. What do you think about commercial punk bands like Bad Religion, maybe Nirvana ?
15. What do you think about old punk bands reunions (Buzzcocks, ...) ?
16. How long is punk going to last ? Imagine - what is punk like in 2000 ?
17. Are you going to watch footballs world-championchips next summer ?
18. Does anyone of you has a pumped sex-doll ?

01. You have played over ten years as a band, would you tell about the highlights and "lowlights" of your career ?  

Highlights certainly were almost all gigs abroad, every release of a new record is a highlight too, interviews with real newspapers, ... Every well organized gig can be remembered as a highlight too (too often gigs are not so well organized). One lowlight certainly was the sell of our third album, which is definitely our best album. Up till then we distributed everything ourselves with good results. For the third album we found an alternative distributor who would arrange the distribution. Sad to say the record did not appear in the stores, people didn't see the record and didn't buy it either. Another lowlight was the period in which we almost hadn't any gigs, this is not so long ago, now things seems to become better. A big desillusion was also in the beginning when two original members left the band.

02. The name "THE DIRTY SCUMS" sounds quite simple, even a little bit stupid. Have you never thought to change the name ?  

This is the first time someone tells us this, in general they tell us the opposite ! "Dirt" and "Scum" are words who are strongly related with punk (The Dirt and Scum even are punkbands), we like our name very much. Even in our wildest dreams we never thought about to change the name of our band.

03. How would you describe your music ? Influences ?  

The music can be described briefly as punkrock. We all like music, not only punk, and a whole variety of bands from the sixties till the nineties. We suppose all this music influences us, but we don't think we're influenced by one band in particular.

04. Do you play similar style as in the beginning, or has your style changed somehow ?  

We don't think the style itself has changed that much, maybe in the beginning you could call it rather punk and now rather punkrock, but that's only a small difference. Of course we now play a bit better (don't imagine too much) than in the beginning and that's something that has really changed.

05. What about the lyrix ? I think you're not singing so political lyrix (based on the "UP AND DOWN ON YOU"-EP) ?  

The "Up and down"-EP is indeed a fun-record. In fact we allways had political lyrix as well as fun lyrix as well as lyrix on other things, let's call 'em serious lyrix. The first two albums are a mix of the two, the first single is completely political, the second is pure fun, the tape we released before "Up and down" is mostly on the serious side. And don't forget in 1984 and 1985 we had an own fanzine with more political articles in it than things about music. It's not always easy to put serious lyrix on fun music, in that case we choose for the fun.

06. All the records you have done before are released by your own label "DIRTY RECORDS". Was it hard to sell records/tapes and look for distributors all the time ?  

As already answered in question 1, in the beginning we didn't have so much difficulties, the problems began with our third album, since then it's really hard to sell our things. For what concerns (alternative) distributors, in fact we don't have very good experiences with them, it seems most of them are only interested in the music that sells for the moment, let's say they are only interested in fashion music. Through the years, this has been hardcore, metalcore, crossover, so with our punkrock we were never there at the right time for those people. Of course there are serious distributors too but in general they only can sell very small quantities.

07. How did the co-working with Incognito Records start ? Can we hear more records of yours released by Incognito ?  

We truly don't know anymore who started to write to the other, but BERND put us on his saleslist, then he asked us for some gigs in Germany, and then we could be part of the "Up and down"-records. We would like our records being released by Incognito, anyway we think he'll always be ready to distribute the things we release.

08. Why there's a Ramones-medley on the EP ? What do you like about the Ramones ?  

We always think our singles have to contain something special, so we thought that Ramones-medley was again something special. One of the reaons why we like the Ramones is the fact that they have simple songs that sound very poppy due to Joey's voice. We also like the melodic things Joey always does with for instance only one sentence.

09. I suppose having fun is an important part of your life. So what do you think about alcohol/drugs ? What is the attitude to drugs in Belgium ?  

To answer first to the first question: having fun should be an important part of everybody's life. We all like drugs, certainly alcohol and in a less degree soft-drugs. The fun is gone when these things become part of your life (instead of the fun), let's say when you're addicted to it. Every kind of addiction is no more fun, and that's not only the case with drugs, you can for instance be addicted to girls too, or in a far more out degree to murder e.g. That's why we're not for hard-drugs because it's almost sure you're immediately addicted to it. The official attitude in Belgium is that only alcohol is legalized. In the punkscene soft-drugs are good representated, we think only a small group uses hard-drugs.

10. How is it to live in Belgium ? Problems with neo-fascists ?  

Belgium is a relatively good country to live in. But indeed, since two years there's an extreme-right party with representators in the parliament. This party represents everything an extreme-right party could represent. The fact that people voted for this party is a bit the fault of the traditional parties who didn't do really much about problems with foreign people (housing problem, ...). You can consider these votes as protest-votes against the way politix are treated here. Anyway, things become dangerous when neo-facists are in the parliament. Also the press pays to much attention to them, maybe it would be better to hush up these facists in the press ?

11. Punk-scene In Belgium ? I haven't heard so many Belgian bands, are there a lot ? Gigs ? Do people drink a lot at gigs like in Finland ?  

When you see how the number of gigs we have, increases each year, one hardly can talk anymore about a scene in Belgium. There were a lot of Belgian bands and there were released a lot of good records too. The problem is that bands split up so fast, but we don't think this is typical for Belgium. In Belgium, we are the only band left from our period and even in Western Europe we are one of the few. Yes, people drink a lot at gigs, at least we think so, cause generally we've been drinkin' too much to really control this kind of things ...

12. Are you "a legend" in Belgium ? What do the punks in Belgium think about you ?  

A legend is a big word, no we're not a legend, people only talk about legends when you've split up, haha. However our first album and first single, who are sold out now for a very long time, seems to go big money to collectors. Anyway a lot of people knows us and does respect us, but this isn't translated into gigs and into the sell of our records. People prefer to go to see foreign bands and buy records from foreign bands, or prefer the music from the moment.

13. Do you have jobs ? What do you think about working ?  

We all have a job and find it in fact quite normal someone has to work to earn his living. Only there's a disproportion in the division of the available work. The working hours someone has to do should be decreased in favour of the number of persons who can get a job. Our socialist party made a point of this idea at the time they were in the opposition. When they joined the government they forgot about this idea, only now the government talks again about decreasing the working hours to fit in some crisis plan.

14. What do you think about commercial punk bands like Bad Religion, maybe Nirvana ?

Both bands you name are for us in fact very good bands, NIRVANA has that overwhelming sound, and BAD RELIGION added to their punkrocksound their typical melodic chants.

15. What do you think about old punkbands reunions (Buzzcocks, ...) ?  

Not all so called reunions really are reunions, a lot of these bands did never split up but become only again a bit more popular. The bands who do it for the money generally split up again very fast. Other bands do only some reunion gigs, but don't exist anymore in fact. Last year we saw STIFF LITTLE FINGERS and EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS, some weeks ago we saw 999, they all were great !!

16. How long is punk going to last ? Imagine - what is punk like in 2000 ?  

Punk as a kind of a music style will always exist, just like rock'n'roll, blues, reggae, ... Punk as an attitude too we think, as long as there are angry young men picking up a guitar ...

17. Are you going to watch footballs world-championship next summer ?  

Only Jenz likes watching football and he indeed will watch the world-championchips on TV.

18. Does anyone of you has a pumped sex-doll ?  

No, they are too expensive.