Knuckle sandwich, hold the bread

>> Sweden's Raised Fist stick close to their hardcore ideals

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

As of late there has been no shortage of hardcore bands lipping off about "giving respect to the old school." The end result is that the fans have become inundated with cookie-cutter hardcore bands, leaving the genre largely in a state of arrested development.

Sweden's Raised Fist may be steeped in a sound reminiscent of the old-school New York hardcore scene, but they manage to bring something new to the table by adding an updated sound that is pummelling, punishing and brutal, like fellow Swedes Machine Head and Meshugga. Raised Fist's agenda is simple--to provide honest, aggressive music played with heart and soul. In doing so, they offer a true alternative to the new legion of hard-music initiates and stand out in a sea of career-minded coattail riders. I talked to singer Alexander Hagman about how down he is with hardcore, how piss-poor top-40 aggressive music is and how his mom can't understand his singing.



Mirror: Aggressive music is starting to get a nod from commercial radio, video stations and print media. Is this affecting you at all?

Alexander Hagman: There's a lot of light on us right now but that's something we just don't care about. We have done a video but nobody would play it. We've been playing hardcore outside of the commercial arena for so long now that we can't even consider any commercial trappings. We simply hate everything that has the dollar sign attached to it. I don't think it takes much thought to come up with the conclusion that music and money just don't mix well together.

M: With underground labels like Hydra Head and bands like Dillinger Escape Plan, Cave In, Coalesce and Converge pushing hardcore to new boundaries, where do you think hardcore is going, musically?

AH: It's all about music in the end, a way of expressing yourself, which we humans have been doing for thousands of years. We are known to play old-school hardcore, I guess, but if I'd like to write some Spanish guitar music one day I'll do it no matter what people would think about it. Right now we like to play music that is hard and brutal. I cannot answer your question exactly, but I can promise you that in the future we are gonna hear more bands that sound like Korn and Limp Bizkit calling themselves hardcore. You can only laugh about it.

M: We see a lot of pre-fabricated angst and safe rebellion happening right now in top 40. How do you detect these poser bands?

AH: Its not that hard to separate the fake-hard wannabe bands from the real ones. Those kinds of people are just too macho for us. We don't understand the fake-aggressive attitude and bands that try to act as mentally disturbed as possible. It's just so ridiculous. I guess to make a lot of money out of this you have to fool the big crowd with that kinda shit. It's like with the American wrestling shit, something we Europeans laugh at a lot.

Parents just don't understand

M: Do you see a lot of bands hopping on the "heavy" bandwagon these days?

AH: Well, yes and no. People who are into music these days seem to want to make a lot of cash. This makes them follow the trends like hungry rats, doing whatever it takes to succeed. There's also honest bands who don't talk shit about everyone else and just play their own music. I really hope that my band will keep on being honest and playing the good music instead of turning into rats running after the rockstar lifestyle. I know that I will probably not be playing hardcore music when I'm 90 years old, and softer music will probably be heard from us when we grow older but at least the music we play still won't be influenced by the cash. We've made that clear to everyone from day one.

M: The New York hardcore scene has always been plagued with overtly violent pits. Have you gotten any macho posturing or violent reactions from your audiences?

AH: Yes, unfortunately, we have. We've even had racists sending us postcards. It's so fucking pathetic that you just wanna slit your wrists when you hear about it. First of all, they don't seem to have any clue of what Raised Fist is all about, especially as one of our main goals is to fight racism worldwide. You're talking about people that aren't paying that much attention to the lyrics. Maybe I have to agree with my mother, who always whines about not being able to hear what I'm singing. Well, mama, you're not alone--although it's a shame putting my mom in the same sentence as these dumbasses.

With Ensign and guests at Le Spectrum tonight, Thursday, Feb. 1, 6:30pm, $17.70, all ages