Rockezine.com interview with Born From Pain on Oct 10, 2006

with Karl Fieldhouse on Oct 10, 2006

The new Born From Pain album will see the light next month. Time for rockezine.com to have a conversation with this Dutch hardcore band.
		Please introduce yourself to the rockezine.com reader. Hey, my name is Karl and I play guitar in Born From Pain. I’m English and have been playing the band for nearly 5 years now.
		What are your expectations of the upcoming album? Personally I have quite high expectations for War, as do the rest of the band. I know a lot of bands may say this when they release a new album, but for me, this is by far our best work and our best collection of songs to date. There is so much diversity within the album. There are heavy parts, really heavy parts actually, there are softer moments, there are aggressive songs that are totally unrelenting from start to finish and there are songs that have a lot of emotion to them. There are bludgeoning breakdowns in places and subtle melody in others, it really has a lot of everything going on, but without it ever losing focus. It is never something that just seems to run away and you lose an overall feeling for the album, and I love that about it. Plus there is no 2 songs that are exactly the same on the album and I love that. It is just an extremely well rounded album in my opinion with something for everybody and that’s why my expectations are high. I think there are HC kids that will love it, metal kids that will love it and I think there are songs on there that will appeal to all kinds of sub genres of Hardcore and Metal. I really think we’ve achieved something very special that can reach a lot of people and that a lot of people can enjoy.
		You went to the Antfarm studio for the third time in a row, why? Well that’s pretty easy, because we always get the best results there and so why change a winning team. Tue Madsen is great to work with on numerous levels, from getting a crushing sound to input on songs for changing small things here or there. He’s very relaxed to work with and the rest of the band and I always have a good time when we visit there.
		Is there a certain message you`d like to pass on with your music? If so, what is it and why? We’ve never been a band that has had a message such as veganism or straight edge or something like that, but as times have changed throughout the years we feel it has become more and more necessary to talk about the things that go on around is in the world and War really has a strong message that you should never give up or lose hope in this world or in yourself, especially yourself. It really is something that everyone can find something in that relates to them, whether it is to do with corrupt governments not standing up for their own citizens, whether you can survive in a hugely corporate and capitalist society when everything around you becomes more expensive where jobs and good pay are harder to find. Or perhaps its to do with the decline of our environment and what seems to be a hopeless endeavour to keep the living world alive and well in an age where respect for nature is something of the past. It really is a War in every aspect to live in this world and sometimes people forget to talk about these things. We are trying to confront these things head on and stand up for ourselves. Hopefully other people can find inspiration in our words and also stand up for themselves too.
		What are the plans for 2006/2007? Plans for the end of this year and 2007 are pretty simple actually, tour like idiots ha. In 7 days time we hit the road with Napalm Death for 5 weeks all over Europe. Also on that tour opening up is Mendeed. We already toured with Napalm Death on the persistence Tour and those guys are awesome, and who have an important message to spread as well, so it’s going to be fun playing with them over the next month or so. We’ll be playing a couple of shows in Holland, in Eindhoven and Haarlem and we’ll also hit Opwijk in Belgium too, so its gonna be a lot of fun. After that tour we will have 2 release shows for War. One in Brunssum at café Smileys on the 24th November and the other in Recklinghausen at Depot in Germany on the 01st December. Then we’ll be playing a few shows here and there in December and with some luck we’ll be hitting the States in January of 2007 and will be doing a headline European tour in February and then more touring after that. Should be fun.
		What about the sales. How many records did you sell from your latest two releases? I’m not really sure what we have done with both Sands Of Time and In Love With The End to be honest, but in total I think we’re probably hitting somewhere around 35’000 – 40’000 worldwide for both of them together. I’m very happy with that too, especially since we never really hit the USA properly at all, and we live in an age where an album can be downloaded a couple of days after the promos are sent out to press. With War I really want to push that a lot more and I hope we’ll do a lot better.
		What`s the best and the worst part about being in this band for you? There are many many amazing things about being in this band, from the simplest thing of being able to make music I love with friends I love to being able to travel allover the world and play our music to people that really love the band we play in. Meeting new people from all over the world is amazing too and getting to see things I would never have seen ever in my life probably is also great. There are all kinds of things that are amazing. Worst things about playing in the band aren’t too many, but the main one is that I don’t get to see my family or girl as much as I would like to whenever I would like to. Then there are the 16 hour drives for one show and things like that, but you usually forget the drives and stuff as soon as you’re there and have kids going crazy and chanting Born From Pain. There are always pros and cons for everything you do of course.
		If you had to chose between supporting a band in front of a crowd of 5000 or headlining a show with just 250 people? That’s pretty hard to answer actually, because there are pros and cons for both of those. Of course playing to 5000 people is gonna be amazing, because it means you get the chance to play to a horde of new people that might not know your music and hopefully you can impress some of those people enough so that they buy your record or come to a headline show. Then there is the joy of playing a sweaty intimate club to a good amount of people who for the most part are there because you’re playing. That kind of atmosphere is also amazing. So really it’s a very tough choice. I think if you want to become successful, then you have to do both, you have to reach new people in order to keep growing, but you have to satisfy those that are your fans too and I’m happy to do both of those things.
seemed fitting for the style of music they wanted to play		Why did you choose the name of the band to be Born From Pain? The band name was picked out by Che and Rob when they first started the band way back in 1997 and it was taken from an Earth Crisis song title. The name really reflected a lot of the things that were going on in their personal lives at the time and also seemed fitting for the style of music they wanted to play. I think the name really reflects that feeling for the band now, because everyone still goes through troubled times one way or another and to me its a perfect way to express the music we play.
		What is the most overestimated band in the scene, which band is most underestimated? That’s really hard to say, because there are probably a lot of overestimated bands around and underestimated bands too, but that would only be my opinion and not something others may share. At the end of the day, its not really my place to shout my opinions out about other bands and what they do, unless it was something really really fucked up. Everyone out there is doing things the way they feel they should do them, and that’s important. Whether it be the style of music or work ethics or whatever, its nor my place to say, this band sucks or these guys are way too underestimated, everyone should be into them. I will however tell you some bands I’m digging right now. The Setup, 20 Inch Burial, Killswitch Engage, Maroon, Iron Maiden, Black Label Society, Lamb Of God, New Found Glory are all bands I’ve been listening to lately.
		Who inspired you to play music, and why? Well, the first band to seriously get me into music were Guns ‘n Roses, but the band that really made me want to play in a band were Biohazard. They were the first show I ever went to on my 16th birthday, and form that moment on from the first chord of them hitting the stage to the last, I was hooked, all I wanted to do was play in a band and hopefully make others feel as exhilarated as I did when I watched them. They just had such a raw energy about them, and could connect with everybody from all walks of life.
		When you may fill in the final question for yourself. What would ask yourself then? Hahaha, that’s always the hardest question, and the honest answer is, I have no idea what I would ask myself. Anybody that reads this interview can mail you with any question they want and I’ll answer it ha. Its so hard to ask yourself a question. Anyway, thanks very much for the interview, its much appreciated, and people should check out the new album titled War. Its out on the 20th November.
(Jeroen Habets)