Thursday March 28th 2024

Interview with Reason To Fight

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Interview with Reason To Fight at The Midway Cafe. Jamaica Plain, MA
By Jimmy Thrash

 

Reason To Fight are a fairly recent discovery for TNB but they’ve been bringing the noise for ten years to Providence and beyond. “Old-school hardcore punk” is how they succinctly describe themselves and I would only add some adjectives before that definition like, “Excellently played,” Exciting,” “Energetic,” and many other words beginning with E. For my money they are Rhode Island’s best hardcore band. Let’s hear what they recently had to say to Jimmy Thrash conducted in the dungeon of the Midway Cafe.

Jimmy Thrash- So how did you guys get started?

Greg (Bass)- I started playing with this drummer and we were looking for a singer. Me and Fuzzy ran into each other at a Agnostic Front/ Kill Yr Idols show, probably eleven years ago now. And he was looking to do some old school hardcore and we got together and it worked out. I taught this other guy Bill to play bass, so I was playing guitar and we wrote ten songs and played shows; we went through some members. Then we started playing out of state a lot.

Fuzzy (Vocals)- And then we went through some members. (Laughter)

Greg- So me and him (Fuzzy) are still here. Brian, you been in the band since what?

Brian (Drums) – Um, last April.

Gus (Guitar)- I’m the new guy, I’ve been here since August.

Jimmy- So how long have you been a band?

Greg- We figured July 3rd of this year is ten years. We’ve played Brooklyn, Boston, New Hampshire a lot. We did one tour where we got down to North Carolina, Florida- we got around.

Fuzzy- We also got shot up. (Laughter)

Jimmy- What happened? Let’s hear this.

Fuzzy- I forgot where that was.

Greg- Jacksonville, Florida. We showed up and their were bullet holes all through the building. The show was obviously canceled. We got to the show at maybe, 11 in the morning. We get there and it’s a brick building but there are bullet holes through the bricks and windows.

Jimmy- Why do you think it was shot up?

Greg- There’s a big white power scene down in Jacksonville and it was an Anti-Racist Oi Fest.

Jimmy- So it wasn’t, particularly, because you were punk rock?

Greg- Oh, no. It was because it was anti-racist. And we stuck around, if the show happened we were ready to play it. But it was like, us and two other bands, and the promoter.

Jimmy- Oh, my goodness. (He shakes his head in disbelief)

Greg- That was it. The F.B.I. was there. They were taking pictures of every car that drove by.

Jimmy- Somethings change and somethings don’t.

Greg- That was probably the most we ever got paid. We got like, 300 bucks for playing and we didn’t play. (Laughter)

Fuzzy- We just drank it away.

Jimmy- When you think about that you could’ ve been in the club when…

Greg- What they did was they drove by the night before, shot it up and left a note saying, “If this goes on we’re gonna come back and finish the job.” We got out of there, went to Savannah, Georgia and spent the money on Pabst.

Jimmy- How would you describe your style?

Greg- Old-school punk hardcore.

Jimmy- Do you have any recording plans?

Greg- We’ve got a bunch of new songs written, try to get in the studio. Our CD just came out November 27, 2011, “Blue Collar Pride.”

Fuzzy- That was five years in the making? (Laughter)

Greg- Yeah, we were looking for record labels. Nobody’s putting out anything anymore. We decided to do it ourselves.

Jimmy- You were trying to find some anti-racist shows to make money. “I know we might get killed, we gotta get it recorded.” Who writes the music?

Fuzzy- We all do.

Brian- It’s a joint effort. Greg will come in with a bass line or riff. Gus, too, comes in with new stuff. We work it from there.

Jimmy- How about the lyrics?

Fuzzy- I got notebooks and notebooks.

Jimmy- How do you think the Providence and Boston scenes compare?

Greg- We’ve been a part of both a while.

Fuzzy- In Providence all the dance clubs are taking over and the good hardcore clubs are closing down.

Greg- We can play wherever we want it’s just people are broke. Nobody’s buying beers, people are drinking before the shows again.

Jimmy- We’ve heard from Brass N Ammo what a good scene Connecticut has.

Greg- The thing is Connecticut is all ages friendly, Providence is trying to be and Boston’s like anti- all ages, they don’t want anybody under 21. And the music’s for kids, you know.

Jimmy- Boston is anti- club with its licenses and restrictions unlike New York.

Fuzzy- Where was that place we played? It was like a Mexican strip club or something, in Brooklyn.

Greg- The stage was in the middle of the club, so people could be behind you.

Jimmy- Who drinks the most in the band?

All- None of us, none of us, we all quit!

Jimmy- What’s that story?

Greg- All for different reasons. We been together ten years and been known as the hardest drinking band in hardcore.

Jimmy- I can guarantee you’re the first non-drinking band interviewed by Thrash N Bang. (Laughter)

Gus- I’ve been playing for twenty years and most shows I’ve been drunk, (Laughter) hammered. And for the last six months, like these guys, totally sober.

Greg- That’s one of the reasons we went through so many members.

Jimmy- So how is it different?

Fuzzy- I can tell you, it definitely sounds better.

Greg- The music is better, the nights aren’t as crazy. I could count on one hand how many times I played sober till I quit.

Fuzzy- I’m not jumping off the stage punching people in the face now.

Jimmy- Who in the band is most likely to become a serial killer?

Greg- Nobody anymore.

Fuzzy- Brian, Brian is the quietest.

Gus- He’s the quiet one. Brian could snap, he’s kind of a shady guy, you know.

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