Pro-Pain
New Reality

12.09.2007

New York hardcore veterans Pro-Pain have a long history of relations with Russia. Back in 1999, they were just one step away from playing in Moscow, but the concert was cancelled at a day’s notice, which was unfortunately not an unusual event back then. Now after eight years the relentless four are once again preparing to step on the Russian soil, and they also have a new album out, “Age Of Tyranny – The 10th Crusade”. The music of Pro-Pain has not changed much with this release, but this is one of the few bands that only benefit from adherence by their own traditions. And their civil position remains as uncompromising as before – once again bassist/frontman Gary Meskil makes public his attitude to the U.S. foreign and domestic policy. He wasn’t as outspoken in our phone conversation as he is on the CD, but we still had an interesting conversation about the past, present and future of Pro-Pain…

“Age Of Tyranny” is your 10th studio album in 15 years, which is a very rare thing nowadays, when most bands release an album every two or even three years. What keeps you working at such a high pace all these years?

We do things in a very independent way. We’re not dependent on record labels really dictating what we should do, we’re not dependent on industry release schedules and things like that. We make our own schedule, and we tend to think about how the fans would want us to release albums, and how frequently. I remember when I was younger and buying a lot of CDs, I always wanted the bands to release CDs more frequently. That’s kind of our approach, we figured it would be great if Pro-Pain could release an album every one or two years. And that’s the way we do it.

Do you record every song you compose, or do you still have any leftovers?

There are very few leftovers. We tend to write a lot of riffs for each album, so a lot of riffs get put by the wayside. But most of what we compose ends up being on our records. Over the years, there are some leftover tracks, but some of them have already been used as bonus tracks.

What does a Pro-Pain song usually start with? Do you write a riff or a melody first and then come up with the lyrics, or do you watch TV or surf the Internet, find something interesting and go like, “Hey, I gotta write a song about it”?

I don’t really search for any lyrical inspiration, this pretty much comes naturally. I am politically inspired, I’m always seeking new knowledge as far as what’s happening in the world is concerned, and I guess that’s reflected in my lyrics. But I never really look to tabloids or television especially for my lyrics. I think if I did my lyrics would be a little misguided. (laughs)

So a Pro-Pain song usually starts with music, and then you come up with lyrics, right?

Yeah. We have done it the other way round in the past, but usually we write music first, and I have a particular phrasing in mind for the lyrics, and the lyrics get penciled in later on.

As you previously said, “Age Of Tyranny” is as close as Pro-Pain have ever got to a concept album. How did you come up with this concept? And do you think this rush towards Armageddon can still be stopped?

Yes, but it takes a lot of awareness. Speaking for most Americans, I could say that most of the people I know are still really in the dark as to what’s really happening out there. Unfortunately they get most of their information from major media sources on television. And I look to the alternative media sources for a lot of my information, and I kind of weave the two. I do watch major mainstream media as well, but I look to many different sources before I make up my own mind. I think a lot of this can be turned around, but it’s gonna take a lot of work as people have to start getting aware of what’s going on in this world. We can possibly turn it around, but we’re a long way from it.

On the very first Pro-Pain album (“Foul Taste Of Freedom”, 1992), there was a song called “Inaqnophobia”, and on the latest CD there is a song called “Iraq-nam”. Unfortunately, the situation around Iraq hasn’t got any better over these 15 years, even though there are public protests going on all the time. In your opinion, how much influence can music and musicians have on the political situation? When you sing about corruption, injustice, war and pain, what effect do you expect from it?

I think that music plays a major role as to the political sentiment out there. If we look back to the sixties, we can see how much of an influence music can have. Unfortunately, a lot of edgy types of artists these days are shying away from politics, and I’m not really so sure why that is. We feel a responsibility to be as aware and as on top of things as we possibly can be. If for nothing else, than to start some sort of dialogue about it, because I think it’s necessary. I think musicians can change things, but there’s an awful lot of ignorant musicians out there as well.

There is a serious message in many of your songs, but at the same time many people who buy the records and come to your shows just for the sake of having fun and enjoying the adrenaline rush they get from your music. How do you react when you see the people to whom lyrics are secondary to music or not important at all? Don’t you feel like your efforts get wasted?

Perhaps. But it’s not really that we’re on any particular kind of mission. We write the lyrics for our own peace of mind first and foremost. If we can influence somebody else in a positive way, that’s an extra bonus for us. But we’re not out here to change people’s minds or form opinions of other people.

Have you considered going into politics yourself? What would you do if you really had a chance to rise to power?

I never thought about going into politics personally, and I’m not so sure why that is. I think a lot of musicians are turned off to the whole process – once we find out what it’s all about, we tend to take a sharp turn in the other direction. But I guess that’s something to ponder in the future, after my music career is over. (laughs)

Let’s now have a break from politics and get back to talking about the band. What happened to your guitarist Eric Clinger, why did he leave the band after so many years of playing together?

Well, Eric Clinger and touring never really mixed too well together. Eric is a great guy, and we had a lot of great times together, he’s an awesome performer on stage, and we can’t really say enough good things about the guy. It’s just that he always had a hard time being away from home. The road took its toll on him after a lot of years, and he came to the point where he just didn’t wanna do it anymore.

Will you continue recording in Eric’s studio, as you did on the previous few albums, or will you search for a different recording location?

We’re talking about doing things differently on the next record, perhaps working with a producer again, which will be the first time that we do that in a very long time. I think it could be a good change for the band, so we’re pushing around a few different producer names. Perhaps we will go in this direction on the next album, I think it will be refreshing to do it that way.

And can you say a few words about the new guitar player Marshall Stevens? How did you get him into the band?

Marshall was highly recommended by our drummer JC Dwyer. They used to be in some band together way back in the day, they’re from the same town in West Palm Beach in Florida. He had learned some material and sent it to us via e-mail, and everything sounded great to the point where we wanted to physically try him out. We did that a couple of weekends ago, and everything fell into place really quick, I was very surprised. I was actually searching for anything negative about the situation and I really couldn’t find anything. We accepted him right away.

The song “Beyond The Pale” from the new album features guest vocals by Matt Bizilla from the band Icarus Witch. Why did you decide to let him sing on that track, and what is his connection to Pro-Pain?

That connection came from Eric Clinger, Eric had produced a couple of Icarus Witch albums. And I was always a fan of that band, I think they play that old-school metal style really well. Matt has a great voice, it’s certainly not a hardcore voice, but he sings that old-school Bruce Dickinson-type of vocals great. When we wrote “Beyond The Pale”, I always envisioned that style in the chorus, and then it became a matter of finding the right person to sing the part. I was already scheduled to fly up to Pittsburgh to mixed, and I asked Eric if he knew anybody that would suit that kind of style for the chorus in that song. He recommended Matt, and things worked out really well.

It’s not the first time you have guest singers, for instance, on “Fistful Of Hate” (2004) you invited Stephan Wiedner from Bohse Onkelz. Are you still in contact with Stephan after the Bohse Onkelz breakup? Do you happen to know whether the band’s members are doing anything musically?

We are big fans and admirers of Bohze Onkels, they kind of took Pro-Pain under their wing a bunch of times, and we actually supported them years ago in one of their bigger tours. We played some big festivals with those guys as well, so we got to be pretty close friends with them. Since the breakup of the Onkelz, we have been in touch with Stephan. We saw him as recently as this last tour that we did in June, we had a show in Frankfurt, and Stephan came down. We had a nice conversation and a few drinks, and he seems to be doing very well. As a matter of fact, he’s working on his solo career right now, he’s recording a solo record. I don’t know whether the Onkelz will be back, he says “no”, but I really wonder. (laughs)

When you toured with Bohse Onkelz, what effect did it have on your album sales and on your status in general? I’m asking because in Germany an association with Onkelz immediately divides the audience in two – because some people love this band and other hate even mentioning it…

That’s true. We took a big chance when we toured with the Onkelz. Our audience contained a high percentage of ultra left-wingers, and the Onkelz were perceived as having right-wing roots, I guess you could say. We decided to meet the band and get a feel for what they were all about, and I found them to be really cool people. We had to make our own decision whether we wanted to step into a situation like that, and we decided to go through with it. We’re very happy that we did, we became really close friends with the Onkelz, and their fans really embraced Pro-Pain, which was a big surprise to us all.

In the liner notes to the cover album “Run For Cover” (2003) you mentioned that you have an extensive record collection. What kind of music are you listening to these days? How much have your musical tastes changed over the past 20 years?

My tastes have changed a lot. I guess you could say that my musical tastes are a lot more open-minded than in the old days. I listen to really many different styles these days, and my record collection reflects that. I listen to stuff like P.M. Dawn, Citizen Cope, Frank Zappa, Cat Stevens, Neil Young, Obituary, Slayer, Origin, Dillinger Escape Plan, Avenged Sevenfold, and it goes on and on and on.

Speaking about open-mindedness, on the first album you have a very unusual track called “Every Good Boy Does Fine”. Where did you get the inspiration to include this Greek sounding melody in this song? Were you listening to world music?

We wanted to leave some open doors for the band musically right from the beginning. We took a very open-minded approach to our music, I can’t think of any other hardcore band that incorporated such types of instruments into their sound in those days. It was pretty innovative. We just figured that if we heard it in our minds, we should go for it and make it happen. We felt that this horn accompaniment in that song was very fitting, and it indeed worked out extremely well.

You have your own label RawHead Records, but as far as I know, it is limited only to the music of Pro-Pain. Have you considered working with some other bands, releasing the albums that are, for some reason, overlooked by other record companies?

We certainly have talked about that in the past. We created the label to serve Pro-Pain, to really get better deals for ourselves. We always felt that it’s better and more advantageous to go from company to company than if a band is dealing with a company. That worked out very well for Pro-Pain, and we got some very good distribution deals as a result of our label. But we never took on other bands, and I guess we just never really had the time. I always figured that if we took on another act we would do it whole-heartedly and do it 100%, and we never had the time to develop other artists and give 100%.

More about record companies – what do you think about the work of your Russian label, Irond Records? Are you happy with the way they handle your affairs over here?

Yes, we are. I think they’re doing a great job, they’re consistently in contact with the band, and they seem to do a fair amount of promotion. They’re up against a lot over there, there’s a lot of pirated or bootleg product on the market, but they’re trying to do things on the level. I definitely respect that, and that’s why we’ve licensed so much product to them.

The only Pro-Pain release that is not available domestically in Russia is the DVD “Raw Video”. What do you now think of it? I heard that it wasn’t a big budget release, and it was only shot with one or two cameras, right?

Yeah, I believe only one. (laughs) The DVD was the idea from Markus Steiger at Nuclear Blast. We didn’t have another DVD out at the time, and Markus suggested it. He wanted to send over some cameramen to film us in Stuttgart, because it’s fairly close to the Nuclear Blast headquarters. We were kind of surprised, when only one cameraman showed up. I guess it turned out pretty good considering there was only one camera, but I cannot say that we are 100% happy with the way it came out, because it does give an appearance of being somewhat low-budget. I guess the price should reflect that.

Have you considered filming and releasing another DVD? After all, you play so many concerts all over the world…

We are always filming stuff. We have a lot of footage to put on a DVD, so we have been discussing it. I guess it is safe to say that another Pro-Pain DVD will eventually be released, the big question is “when”.

More about the visual side of the band – your album artworks are always very impressive, but the most striking and unusual one is the cover for “Round Six” (1999), where you are pictured as comic book heroes. Who came up with such a brilliant idea? And why did you decide to do such an experiment? After all, your music didn’t get any lighter on that record…

I’ve always enjoyed band caricatures, whether it be caricatures done for the Rolling Stones or for Aerosmith’s “Draw The Line”. The Descendents had some real cool cartoons of themselves, and caricatures done of themselves. I was always a pretty big fan of that style, it’s a little bit more light-hearted, but I think Pro-Pain has that side as well. Anyone that knows us will definitely tell you that, and I thought it was a good time to come out with a bit of a lighter side of the band. We hired a professional caricaturist from Utah, who had done some really cool stuff, he sent me some sketches initially, and they looked great. We just told him to rock with the idea, and he came up with that cover in less than a week, I believe.

Is it true that you had problems with the cover and booklet layout for the album “The Truth Hurts” (1994), because it was too shocking? (It contained photos from the NY police archives – ed.)

Yeah, it was very controversial at that time. The record came out in 1994, and I guess the public wasn’t quite ready for seeing such things in the booklet of a hardcore band, speaking for America anyway. The record company offered two different booklets for that album, one was censored and the other one uncensored. If we look at it now, it was a pretty silly idea, but that was the label’s idea. (laughs) The original artwork has become somewhat of a collector’s item.

But at that time in America there were bands like Cannibal Corpse, who had much more shocking artworks!

That’s true. I guess it was just so unexpected coming from a so-called hardcore band that they didn’t even wanna release it like that. We had somewhat of a media backlash as a result as well, I remember Metal Maniacs actually saying that they would refuse to review any further Pro-Pain product because of that album cover. I told them to go and fuck off, because we don’t make records because of Metal Maniacs, we do it for ourselves. If they want to come along for the ride and review our records, then that’s fine, but that’s certainly not why we’re here.

Did they fulfill their promise not to review any other Pro-Pain stuff?

No, it turned out that they were full of shit! (everybody laughs) Thankfully they give us pretty good reviews these days.

For many people, Pro-Pain have always been associated with the New York hardcore scene. But now I’m calling you to Florida, not New York. When did you leave the city, and what made you do it?

I left at about the time when my son was born. I thought this was a much better place to raise my family. I had other family members that had already moved down to Florida, and it just seemed like the right move for me at that time. There are aspects of New York that I miss, that’s for sure, but I don’t regret the move, because we’re definitely happy down here.

Apart from Pro-Pain, you are also busy with the reunion of your former band The Crumbsuckers. How did you get together after nearly 20 years? And there were plans to do a tour with The Crumbsuckers – why haven’t they materialized?

We had an idea of putting the band back together, but only for one special reunion concert. It was basically to symbolize 20 years after “Life Of Dreams” (the first Crumbsuckers album – ed.) was released. It took a lot of work to put together such a concert, because we hadn’t really been in touch with each other throughout the years, it was difficult getting all that old music back together and coming up with something that was an accurate and good representation of the band. Four of the original members got back together, including myself, and we had a sold out concert at BB King’s in New York City. That was in August 2006. I guess the show was so great that we considered doing more stuff after that. A European tour was put together, but the promoter ended up cancelling it, and he cancelled about four other tours after that, so there was a problem with the agency at that time.

Do you have anything else in plans for The Crumbsuckers, or have you given up this idea?

Unfortunately we kind of put a cap on it after the tour cancellation. Pro-Pain was really busy with the new release and some touring as well, so we kind of put the Crumbsuckers reunion  thing on the shelf, at least for the time being.

Speaking about touring, you will soon play your very first show in Russia. What are your expectations from this trip and this gig?

To say that we’re excited about it is an understatement. Going to Russia has been something on this band’s agenda for a long time, and we plan to put on one hell of a show.

Is it true that your guitarist Tom Klimchuk has Russian grandparents?

Yes, that’s true!

Does he speak any Russian?

Not that I’ve heard. (laughs)

Pro-Pain on the Internet: http://www.pro-pain.org

Special thanks to Alexei “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond Records) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
August 3, 2007
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