 Hey You! How are you today? Hallo Pierre, everything’s OK – thanx! |
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| Please introduce CRIPPLE
BASTARDS, current line-up & what the band is all
about? Well, it can sound very strange but Cripple Bastards have 2 line – ups in this moment! It goes like this: Me (Andrea a.k.a “Schintu the Wretched”), Giulio the Bastard, Alberto the Crippler and Walter Dr. Tomas are currently working on the new full lenght LP / CD that will be recorded in July 1999, after that Alberto and Walter will definitely leave the band and they’ll be immediately replaced by Fulvio “Hatebox” on 6 strings and Al “Commando” Mazzotti taking care of drums duties; with Fulvio and Al we already play live and soon we’ll start to work on new songs. This happened because Alberto and Walter decided to leave Cripple Bastards when almost all the work for the new record was done and it would have been a problem and a big loose of time to teach to Fulvio and Al the new songs, considering that the release of the new LP/CD has been already rejected for a long time. |
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| Are you
great friends inside Cripple Bastards. Are you like,
I don't know... a family? Do you have many local
supporters/friends; from your area? Yeah, we are very big friends inside the band, we meet ourselves not only for concerts and rehearsal but we spend a lot of our free time together; unfortunately we live in 4 different cities quite far from each other but we always manage to go on holidays, to shows etc. together. We have a lot of friends in our area and we are always a big bunch when we move; as for supporters…we have quite a lot of them here in Italy, I mean people that always come to shows, buy our records, keep in touch etc. but our biggest supporters are abroad, when we plaied outside Italy we always found great people that showed true friendship and respect to us. |
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| Words
about HATRED are often left on your releases. Is this
the main thing motivating the band keeping playing?
After so many active years do you think you still
have good years in front of you? Hatred is a big motivation for us to keep on playing, everything you can hear / read on a Cripple Bastards record comes from our sincere neglect for the shit we have around and we have to face everyday: cliché, lack of personality… I hope Cripple Bastards will last for another decade or more, consider that me and Fulvio are 21, Al is 20 and Giulio is 24 so I think there’s a pretty long future for Cripple Bastards! |
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| Many
grind/mince/hardcore/crust bands declare their lyrics
are as important as their music(noise), if not more.
Do you think Cripple Bastards is part of those bands? And about lyrics... they can be extremely pessimistic and sometimes with a quite positive messages... So how do you see things? Since the very beginning Giulio and Alberto wanted to give to the band’s listeners the so called “read, listen, think” feeling so lyrics are definitely as important as music in Cripple Bastards but – on the opposite of many grind / mince / hardcore /crust bands – C.B.’s lyrics do not deal with specific political topics. Giulio writes all the lyrics / commentaries and I think they perfectly fit on our music, Cripple Bastards music without Giulio’s lyrics wouldn’t sound the same. As I told before Giulio writes all the lyrics and he’s a pessimistic individual so he’ll always talk about things in a negative way, do not expect positive lyrics from Cripple Bastards since they aren’t our daily cup of tea, for sure. |
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| How do
you feel the progression of C.B. music style from the
start till now? I'm not very familiar about the early
releases of the band. But a friend o mine told me it
was totally dirty noise-core. is that right? Yeah, some demos and split 7”s w/ Violent Headache and W.B.I. are 100% extreme and nihilistic noisecore dementia even if the rest of the early demo tapes and 7”s are more on the lo-fi fastcore/grind style that made Cripple Bastards easily recognizable between many bands. I can tell you about the progression of the band during all these years as an outsider since I joined the band one year ago. All the releases until “Your lies in check” has been recorded in rehersal rooms with a 4 trax by Giulio, Alberto and Michele themselves, except for the splits w/ Social Genocide and Carcass Grinder and the “Frammenti di vita” 7”ep that were recorded live in studio with a really poor sound quality; “Your lies in check” LP/CD has been the first real studio release for Cripple Bastards, it was recorded and mixed in several different sessions, the ep’s that came later were all recorded and mixed in a professional studio. Anyway I do not know if in the future we’ll always record in studio, me and Fulvio are very big fan of Cripple Bastards’ “Life’s built on thoughts” era sound so maybe we’ll record something else with a simple 4 trax in a rehearsal room as well as probably we’ll release some new noisecore blasts sooner or later! |
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| Do you
still see future of the band in pure brutal grindcore/hardcore
only? & What are the bands who directly influence
your music. Do you listen other styles than grind/HC/metal...? There are really too many bands that had an influence on us, talking about hardcore bands I can tell you we got big inspiration from 80’s italian, dutch, finnish, brazilian, american, japanese and english oufits (some names could be Lärm, Negazione, Indigesti, Wretched, Terveet Kädet, Kaaos, Mob 47, Ohlo seco, HHH, E.N.T. etc.), the same is for early grind/crust/noise bands, the mid 80’s thrash metal scene left a mark on us too (especially bands like Slayer, Kreator, Possessed…) and the list coud go on and on. Anyway we are four different individuals inside the band and we all listen to many different kinds of music/noise, we surely love grind and HC but we also listen to thrash metal, doom, sludge, PowerViolence, noise, noisecore, electronics, dub, new wave, pop… we’re quite open minded. As for the future of Cripple Bastards music I think it will always be into brutal grindcore and hardcore for sure, since it’s the music we love to play and the one that perfectly represents us. |
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| Can you
introduce the very latest releases & how they
sound like? The very latest releases are the split 7”s w/P.E.L.M.E. and World and the “Live to hate people” live 3” CD, the Splits are some of the best to date, powerful studio production, really cured graphix, well plaied and with some of the best lyrics / commentaries ever appeared on Cripple Bastards records, both of them are more on the “grind side” of Cripple Bastards: short songs with very few hardcore features, fans of unleashed brutaly will approve them! The “Live to hate people” 3” CD is a live release of material recorded in 1996/7 and represents very good that period, songs are normally plaied at double speed so if someone only heard “Your lies check” and never saw us live will be surely surprised! |
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| Any more
releases planned for a near future? We have loads of new releases planned for the future, we already recorded the songs for a split 7” with Denak that should be released by the american label Rethoric as a picture disc, we have to mix five new songs that will be releases on “False Sense rec.” as “Il grande silenzio” 7”ep. In the middle of july we’ll have a really long studio session where we’ll record the new full lenght LP/CD “Misantropo a senso unico” (co-production between different labels including E.U.’91 Produzioni, Havin’ a spazz , Rethoric, Obscene Productions…), the split 3” CD w/ Scrawl (on Ecocentric records) and the split 7” w/Corrupted; in early 2000 we’ll record the songs for a split 10” w/Rupture. We’re also planning to release a collective Cripple Bastards home-video, but we’re still looking for labels so if someone is interested just drop us a line; there will be loads of new Cripple Bastards songs on different compilations too, so watch out! |
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| The label
E.U. 91 produzioni is related to C.B. I was wondering
if you still currently put some releases out? “E.U. ’91 produzioni” was founded by Giulio in 1991 and now I started to take care about it too, we just co- produced with “Havin’ a spazz rec.” the Cripple Bastards / P.E.L.M.E. split 7” and the new Arturo “Topo volante” full 7”. In the future we’ll co-produce some other Cripple Bastards releases and hope to release some new stuff by our own, unfortunately we are often out of money so I do not know what we’ll release in the near future, anyway “E.U. ’91 produzioni” is still alive and active both as label and distribution, so if someone’s is interested in our massive distro-list full of grind / fast HC / old italian punk-HC re-issues…I invite him to write us. |
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| C.B.
discography is very loaded. What do you say if I
compare C.B. to Agathocles? Don't you think your
"listeners" can get lost in all these
releases? Somes are not glad to find the same songs (even
if it's in different version, live, or whatever) on
many records. What would you answer to them? I think there are no bands on this planet that could be compared to Agathocles since they released something like 40 eps, 5 LPs and so on so they’re unique in these field, Cripple Bastards released about 15 eps, 3 CDs (including “Best Crimes” which is a collection and “Live to hate people” which is a 3” live one), a split LP and a couple of split 10”s, we definitely have a wide discography but most of our records feature new songs that never happened to be previously released. “Your lies in check” collects most of the songs appeared on previous eps and split eps but they’re completely re-recorded and re-arranged, it happened because most of the splits were in very limited edition (500 / 1000 copies) and they’re completely sold out and hard to find now while “Your lies in check” has been pressed in 5.000 copies (as an LP, CD and Tape) and has been massively distributed worldwide. In the future we’ll release only new stuff, but since 1988 Alberto and Giulio wrote something like 1.000 songs so probably we’ll use a limited number of old songs on our next productions. |
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| Within
all those records, do you see MAIN releases which
represent the band very well? What would you advise
people to get first from C.B. to have a good idea
about it? To prevent our listeners to get lost in our discography I suggest them to look for “Your lies in check”, “Best Crimes” and “Live to hate people” ‘cause they represent in a clear way the band in the different periods of its life, as for the actual sound I warmly recommend the splits w/ I.R.F., P.E.L.M.E. and World that, along with the split w/Denak, will be hopefully re-mastered and re-pressed as a collection CD on Rethoric recs. and, when it’ll be ready, I suggest everybody to buy the new full lenght LP / CD “Misantropo a senso unico”. |
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| I suppose
you receive lots of mail from fans & UG people
everyday, no? Do you manage answering everyone? Is
Email/Internet making the things easier? or is the
response on the net very small? What of this new kind
of way of communication. Some people are really
against it... We receive mountains of mail everyday and I take the chanche to apologize with everybody who’s waiting for a reply from us since ages, we answer all the letters we receive but they’re so many that it’s impossible for us too be as fast as we’d like to be! We receive loads of e-mails too and sometimes we have to spend whole afternoons answering them, anyway e-mails are faster, cheaper and safer than snail mail so they’re really helpful and appreciated. Talking about Internet I can consider myself as a supporter of it, I mean it’s really cheap and fast, you can get in touch with many people all over the world and can find a lot of interesting things to buy, read and listen. Naturally it has got negative apects too, some people are really addicted to it and sit in front of the computer all day long erasing personal relationship with the others, but they’re a small circle in the end. |
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| Many CB
covers use stills from old, sick, horror, gore movies.
Is everybody in the band into this type of cinema?
can you explain what is this bringing to the image of
your band? What is your selection of all-time must-see
movies? What do you think of gore/horror-influenced
cinephilic bands like Mortician & Impetigo? Giulio and me are big fans of cinema but also the other dudes in the band appreciate this kind of stuff, even if they’re not collectors or devotees as me and, especially, The Bastard! I’m a “giallo”/thriller maniac even if in this period I totally worship old crime movies too, Giulio loves crime and “giallo” too but he’s really attracted by real death footages, Mondo movies and video nasties in general more than me; both of us love horror movies, italian flicks are number 1! This kind of movies are extremely morbid, violent and crude exactely like Cripple Bastards, the only difference is that those directorts made films and we play music / noise. Write down a list of “must see” movies is as difficult as the previous “must listen” records list, I suggest Dario Argento’s “Profondo Rosso” (as well as all his early movies), Joe D’Amato’s “Buio Omega”, Fulci’s “New York Ripper”, “Zombi 2”and “The Beyond”, Bava’s “Bay of blood” and “Shock”, Deodato’s “Cannibal Holocaust” and many many more, is better to stop now or I’ll write a 10 pages list! I also like a lot Buttgereit’s “Nekromantik” and “Schramm”, the “Guinea pig” series, american classics as the immortal “Halloween” saga or early “Hellraiser”; if someone would like to talk about it with me or Giulio just write us! I like horror / gore influenced bands, for example Mortician are cool ‘cause they mix their passion for extreme motion pictures with hyper-downtuned mayhem and the lowest growls existing on earth, Impetigo are a real death / grind classic (the “Buio Omega” 7” rules!), I know “Morbid Records” is supposed to re-print all their records including the “Giallo” demo, that’s great! I also love Repulsion, their music is still really fresh and innovative today, Regurgitate rocks too… there are loads of great bands into horror and gore, some of them unfortunately “R.I.P”, some others still around and kicking! |
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| Maybe I'm
wrong but I don't remember reading any C.B. lyrics
about vegetarism(/lism). So I'd like to know if you
had a point of view on this topic... ? You’re right, there aren’t Cripple Bastards lyrics dealing with this topic, me and Giulio are the only vegetarians inside the band. I think being vegan / vegetarian is a deeply personal choice, I feel to support it but I won’t make propaganda for it, I just invite people to think about this kind of diet since I think it’s a really easy and useful alternative to the modern way of eating. |
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| What do
you think of straight-edge bands/movements... etc..
some people against it even say their ideas &
acts are fascist... What do you think about that? I like to drink, smoke etc. but I respect straight edgers, if it’s a serious personal choice I do not see anything bad about it. I usually don’t appreciate preachy bands / individuals and unfortunately, especially nowadays, many SxE people are really boring, I mean stuff ala Earth Crisis and so on, I see it as a big trend: they all say the same things, wear the same clothes… there’s a big lack of individuality and for me individuality is really important. I prefer old straight edge bands like Minor Threat, S.O.A., Infest, early Youth of Today etc. I found them more sincere and more intelligent. What I really do not like of this SxE “new wawe” is that they’re really determined against abortion, what you can read on their flyers / lyrics sheets are very similar to the bullshits catholic people and Jehova witnesses put in my letter box sometime, it really disgusts me! |
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| Here is
the question about italian music scene... what are
the good bands to support?? Any good, really new
starting bands to really pay attention to? There aren’t many grind bands in Italy, most of what the italians into HC call grind is fake PowerViolence in the way of bands like Crossed Out, M.I.T.B., Suppression, Spazz…I like those who invented it because they have a unique and diverse sound, while the italian clones suck really bad. The only good grind italian band I listened to is Hatebox, which is our guitarist Fulvio’s one man band, he plays guitar + bass, sings and program the drum machine…really hateful and intense, check his demos. Italy has got a big hardcore tradition and we still have some really good fast HC band around, look out for Crunch, Arturo, Aut of step, Entropia (I play drums in this band!), Mururoa and Bocca Chiusa, if you like adrenaline filled screaming HC you won’t be disappointed. |
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| How often
do you rehearse or meet together in the band? We rehearse twice a week because we are very busy in this period and we have this “double line-up” problem, after the recordings of the LP we’ll start to rehearse once a week, I think it will be perfect. As I told you before we usually meet to go to shows or spend week - ends together, so I see the others quite a lot. |
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| Live gigs
also seems very important thing for Cripple Bastards?
No? How often do you play concerts? What countries
the band visited when touring? Are there any
upcomming gig dates/places planned? We really love to play live, we’ve been in Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Czech republic, Germany, Holland and Belgium. This summer we’ll tour eastern Europe again for the second time, we’ll play in Slovenia, in Czech republic at the Obscene Productions festival, in Germany and, for the first time, in Poland, I think it’s gonna be very exciting…see you there! We’re supposed to play abroad some week-ends in southern Germany and maybe France during summer, so keep your eyes open. In october we’ll fly to Brazil ‘cause we have a one month tour scheduled, it is the longest Cripple Bastards tour ever and I suppose it’s going to be something amazing! During 2000 we’d like to go to Japan and in the U.S.A. so if someone has the opportunity to set shows in theese countries please get in touch. |
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| And then...
that's all I could think about! Hope it wasn't too
boring! I probably missed something to ask?? Anyway...
please add some closing comments! & contacts ... Thank you Pierre for this interview, it has been one of the coolest I ever answered, I wish you all the best with all your activities and projects, keep it grinding and gory! A big cheers to all the Cripple Bastards friends and listeners around the world, see you! Write us at the following addresses:
and check out the
Cripple Bastards homepage on the net: |
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     DISCOGRAPHY: |
