warwoundwebzine

Much has been said about this book, but it’s still not enough.

This is a book that has become synonymous with state control, propaganda and abuse of power.

Now I’m not going to make the ultimate review of this book but I’ll just try to explain how much this book meant to me and why.

First, let’s set the stage.

The world of 1984

This book was written in 1948 and is set in a dystopian England a few decades later. England, like the rest of the world, is under controlof one of the 3 dominant warring ideologies that control the world. The engrossing state of “Oceania” is ruled by a totalitarian, pseudo-socialist regime called ‘Insoc’ lead by the allmost mythical leading figure of “Big Brother”. 

Every aspect of the average citizen’s life is under very strict control of the ministry of Love (which “rehabilitates” or liquidates dissidents), the Ministry of Truth (which deals with propaganda and historic falsification), the Ministry of Plenty and the ministry of Peace (these two work together make sure that the mix of war and artificial shortage of goods keep the people poor, weak, fearfull and dependent).

Posters of the Party leader, Big Brother, bearing the caption “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” adorn every wall as are the slogans, WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY and IGNORANCE IS STRENGHT. Hidden and clearly visible microphones and camera’s are everywhere and the slightest sign of independent thought (thoughtcrime) could result in  death.

The new official language is called “Newspeak” which is constructed to make independent thought impossible.
All negative emotions are supposed to be channeled during the “Daily 5 minutes of hate”. When people are allowed (actually obligated) to project their anger and hatred on the now-dissident, ex-INGSOC leading party member “Goldstein” appearing on the cinema or TV-screens.

War is a constant factor in every person’s life since the constant fear of the enemy is being used to keep the people obedient.

The only people who are allowed a certain degree of freedom are the wealthy inner party members and the impoverished working class, the proles.

The story.

The protagonist, Winston Smith, works for the Ministry of Truth and his job is falsifying facts for the Ingsoc-party. This is done for the regime’s process of constantly re-writing history to keep it on par with their current policies as well as erasing all evidence of the existence of persons executed by the state.

Winston’s first act of rebelion is keeping a dairy, since all written records are supposed to be controlled by the state. He starts with the act of writing down the words “Down with Big Brother” a number of times just because he can.

One day, at the Minitrue, a woman named Julia hands him a folded paper note; later, at his desk he covertly reads the message: I LOVE YOU.
The two begin a secret love affair, which is strictly forbidden under the Big Brother regime.
Later in the novel, the two meet O’ Brien, a member of the underground revolutionary movement. Things really start to get ugly from here.

1984 is not Science Fiction in the strict sense. It’s emphasis is not on possible future scientific discoveries and the impact they have on mankind but rather on what would happen if certain pollitical idiologies were taken to their logical extremes. 

This is not a very happy book. It’s one of the bleakest novels I have ever read and at the same time, by far the most intriguing. 

[Spoiler Alert!] Orwell offers us no happy ending and as such, no simple sollutions to the problems he adresses and that makes it even more effective. [No more spoilers beyond this point]
After reading this you will find yourself asking: “Could this really happen?”

George orwell the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair  (born 1903 ), -a staunch libertarian socialist and veteran of the Spanish civil war- has written this novel as a warning against totalitarianism and especially Stalinism. He warns us ofoautoritatian regimes taking over our lives hold of the country or the world, and reminds us that power corrups and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This book is often compared to earlier, and inspired many later dystopian novels but I have yet to read one that is as disturbing, thought provoking and plain timeless as George Orwell’s mangnum opus.

Reading this is simply mandatory.

Punkness: 1000%  A lot of punk bands pay tribute to this book, most notouriously, the Dead Kennedys.  

Metalness: ???? Other than Queensryche, I can’t recall any metal bands doing it. Either way, if you haven’t read this book yet, you’re a poser. 😉

Hello and wellcome to our second issue.
This month we’re proud to present you interviews by :

– CAPTIAL SCUM (Bel)

– IRON KOBRA (Ger)

– DEAFENESTRATION (Bel)

– VIOLENT CITY (Bel)
…and some stuff that we felt like sharing with you.

Enjoy and thanks for your patience.

– Joe Dharma and Jeff.

Dutch mass muderering Nazi dies in freedom.

On the 24^th of may, Klaas Carel Faber, a Dutch Nazi collaborator and war criminal has died at the ripe old age of 90. Faber fled to Germany after serving only 5 years of his life sentence in the Netherlands and has lived there happily and undisturbed.

In the Netherlands he got convicted for the murder of 11 people.  Later in in 2011, a Munich court convicted him for his role in the killing of 28,000 Jews as a Nazi death camp guard
The Simon Wiesenthal Center last year placed Faber at number 3 on its list of most-wanted Nazi criminals. Germany would not hand this s***bag over.

(Klaas Faber, war criminal).

It seems to me that German governements always deal harsher with communists than people who collaborated with the Nazi’s. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The case against Blair.

On monday the 29^th of may 2012 Tony-socialist in name only-Blair was to testify about the nature of his relationship with media mogul Rupert Murdoch (naughty, naughty) .
At one point an activist and documentary maker named David Lawley Wakelin busted in and screamed “This man should be arrested for war crimes! JP Morgan paid him off for the Iraq war. Three months after we invaded Iraq, he held up the Iraq bank for £20 million. He was then paid $6 million every year, and still is, from JP Morgan, six months after he left office. The man is a war criminal!”

I don’t know about the JP Morgan theory (I’m usually not fond of conspiracy theories) BUT check out some of these links:

http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/pp012103.htm

http://www.arrestblair.org/

http://blairfoundation.wordpress.com/

http://tonyblair.org/
http://www.prosecutionofbush.com/
http://icasualties.org/
http://costofwar.com/en/

…and then tell me you don’t agree that these people should be thrown in jail without an official complaint (in the “Kafka meets Orwell”-style Bush introduced) and be locked up for life.

Guantanamo Bay or Abu Graib would do just nicely I think.

(Blair and king George II, two other war criminals who got away with it.)

King of Spain: shameless murderer of elephants.

A few weeks ago it was revealed that Juan Carloz, king of Spain, broke his hip while doing his rather bizarre hobby: going on expensive trips killing some of the most inteligent and gentle creatures on the planet who are already nearly extinct. Yes, this A-hole uses his people’s tax money for murdering elephants for f***k’s sake and at the same time ordinary Spaniards (you know, the ones who don’t make in a year what this d*****bag spends in a day on safari) cope with harsh austerity, recession and soaring unemployment.

I’m really sorry that he only got away with a broken hip.

(Sick).

Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson out on parole.

I’m glad to anncounce that anti Whaling activist Paul Watson will be released on bail next week. He had been arrested in Germany supposedly for (get this): “violating ship traffic”. The actual reason is, of course, standig up for what’s right (always a dangerous thing) and interfering with the business interests of those who profit (illegally!) from the pain and death of innocent creatures.

Now, isn’t it odd, that a foreign, mass murdering Nazi war criminal is allowed to live happily ever after in Germany (see above), while someone who takes action against the illegal killing 

illegal killing of innocent creatures is arrested on a 10-year old, pathetic, trivial charge, then nearly handed over to Costa Rica, (where he would most likely get murdered in jail), only to be released on parole after bringing in 250.000 dollars (!).

He’s still not allowed to leave the country untill further notice, does it mean that they’re still concidering handing him over to Costa Rica?

To be continued…

Sea Shepherd’s website:
http://www.seashepherd.org/

Here’s some stuff on the net that I found interesting and/or funny for some reason or another:

– A while ago I asked our Straight Edge friend XjonahX if, there was such a thing as a ‘soda connaisseur’ as is the case with wine, beer or even coffee. Maybe there are also websites that rate soft drinks to?

It turns out this is indeed the case.

XjonahX sent me a link, I found a few others: 

http://www.bevreview.com/
http://softdrinkreviews.blogspot.com/

But this is the most profilic one:
http://www.weirdsodareview.com/

(not photoshopped, this stuff is real)

-The Metal Mockery website:

Just plain hilarious.

– “Ruthless reviews” is an awesome website: they provide us with the top 10 most ridiculous Black Metal pictures Part 1 and part 2 and the worst Black Metal records of all time, amongst other things.

– Here’s a myspace site dedicated to the coolest thing in the world: the kutte.

(Patch-less kutte).

Speaking of which, there are actually quite a lot of websites dedicated to punk & metal battle jackets but this photo compilation is even funnier. Here are some pictures of the most controversial item in the world of punk fashion: the fanny pack.

(Less extreme example of the punk fannypack).

– The top 10 most disgusting foods in the world: self explanatory.

(Cazu marzu: maggot ridden cheese)

– ‘Landover Baptist Church‘ is a funny take on Christian fundamentalism. What if you take Christian fundamentalism to the uttermost extreme? Go find out here.
Don’t forget to take their bible quizzes. You might learn a thing or two.
They recieved a lot of hilarious hate mail to but I can’t find it anymore for some reason?

(Pastor Deacon Fred ).

-Apparently Belgium does not exist:

It’s a New World Order conspiracy, I knew it!

-A funny essay on why metalheads and hippies are basically the same:

That’s all the crazy stuff for this month. And yes, I should get a life, I know.

The NWOBHM band TREDEGAR hails from whales and takes its name from a village in said region.
It was the band formed by guitarist Tony Bourge, and drummer Ray Phillips after they left heavy rock band BUDGIE.
Never been too much of a Budgie fan (which probably makes me lose some scene points) but I absolutely love this record and as far as I’m concerned you could hardly tell this band has anything to do with the aforementioned band.

Now on the other hand, this isn’t speedy, punkish, Pauli Di Anno-era-IRON MAIDEN-like NWOBHM, this falls into the cathegory of progressive influenced NWOBHM. Thus, songs vary between straight up metal, prog-influenced metal and -dare I say it?- ballads, sometimes even in one song.
The wild & wailing guitar work also keeps things interesting throughout.
These are very epic, creative yet at the same time very catchy and accessible.
Also, whereas the vocalists of Epic Heavy metal legends like MANILLA ROAD and CIRITH UNGOL really have to grow on you, the singer of TREDEGAR has a very soft, clean singing style that even your mom would like. 

 These songs show a great deal of variety, the first track “Duma” is an anthemic metal song while “the Alchemist” and “Richard III” are slower epic prog songs.

“Which way to go” apparently features guest vocals from CLOVEN HOOF’s Russ North.

The lyrics, as you probaly allready guessed, deal with medieval knights, king Arthur, epic batlles and the like, which of course perfectly fit the music.

For fans of: Manilla Road, Brocas Helm, Cirith Ungol, Saxon, Angel Witch, Cloven Hoof, Iron Maiden, DIO and the likes…

(Third World Genocide: Atroucious album).

As with Megadeth, I have a very strong love/hate relationship with this band. I think most of their records are pretty mediocre for starters. I do have a small N.A. Patch on my vest and it’s there for one reason only: the album “Handle with care” is a thrash metal masterpiece. Fast, punky thrash metal with socially aware, left wing lyrics dealing with such topics as environmental pollution, animal testing, war and the treat of war as an excuse for violation of human rights, this album is timeless both musically and lyrically.

The albums that came after it were mediocre at best. That’s excusable. Inspiration is hard to find and it’s difficult to make good ablums after you delivered your magnum opus.

(Divine album).

First song “3^rd world genocide” deals with (Shock! Horror!) the UN. Now I’m not a huge fan of the UN but it never ceases to amaze me how Americans always complain about the UN being either useless/innefective (wich in a lot of cases is actually the US’s own fault) or either a huge all-powerfull New World Order conspiracy to dominate the world, and sometimes even both at the same time(!)
(Hello, Dave Mustaine).

Meanwhile these people remain blissfully aware of their own glorious nation’s very long history of s-so-called- righteous” (agressive) wars on one hand and their blindness for the atrocities of allied dictators on the other. And then these kind of peope still have the nerve to say “America can’t do anything right in the eyes of liberals’, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t”. Well, that pretty much exactly sums up the general attitude you have towards the UN guys.

Don’t get me wrong: you can complain about the UN all you want, just get the facts straight, don’t give us that N.W.O.-tinfoil hat conspiracy theory cr*p, quit contradicting yourself, and last but not least: take a look at your own very questionable foreign policies first.

Whatever, on to the next

Second song, strangely called “Price of freedom” seems to be a pro-‘war in Afghanistan’- song.

“Leave three thousand lying dead upon our streets
Use our freedoms to strike at our core
Rejoice in the results of your desperate killing spree
Object when we react will all out war “
It can be briefly summarized as such: “you Afghans attacked us, now it’s your turn to bleed”.
Riiiiiight, I see a few flaws in this way of thinking guys: first of al Afghanistan did not attack you on 9/11, granted, they had a lot of Al Quaeda people there, and the Taleban were the lowest of the low BUT there has never been any proof that any of them knew Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
Also, these guys were perfectly willing to make a deal about granting US troops permission to search for Bin Laden and Al-Quaeda on a few conditions, but King George II didn’t want to hear about it.
Now I couldn’t find offical, let go exact numbers but rest assured that the number of innocent civilians that died beacuase the bombing in Afghanistan far exceed the 3000 deaths on 9/11. Not much effort has been done to avoid civilian casualties either (risking less than 29 civilians’ lives with each military target was deemed accepatble, that was the offical policy). And tell me, why should the average citizen of any nation suffer from the consequences war to pay for someone else’s crimes?
Even so, great way of doing things guys, an eye for an eye, just make sure you call the vietnamese to tell them they have now persmission to drop megatons of bombs, agent orange and napalm on US civilians, to compensate for the 20 years of useless mass murdering in their country. An eye for an eye and two worngs make a right, eh?

Next

“Human Wreckage” and “Living Hell” seem to be about religion stirring up hatred and these songs are lyrically really decent and relevant as far as I’m concerned. However, in the light of the previous song’s lyrics, words like these:

“Never think about the end it is easier to hate than to live on in peace
Unleashed a violent rage
You don’t seem to mind and you don’t seem to need a good reason why
Looking for someone to hate
I see these lives I see to many lives wasted this way
All your leaders they are the same
Now one seeks peace not one seeks peace “
…come across as pure hypocrisy. First you write a pro-war song then you sing about the horrors of war and hatred? It allmost seems that somebody in your band suffers from multiple personalities. (That would certainly explain a lot.)

“Whine and cheese” is just a silly joke so I’ll skip it. “Defiled innocense” is lyrically a pretty good song about child abuse in the church so I can only aplaud them for adressing this issue.

“Exosekeletal” is a song about social injustice and unfair taxation. Sound promising, right? Forget it. Take this line for example:
“The left and right working in tune
Making sure they’re the only two
Sharing power corruption greed and wealth” wtf?
America doesn’t have a meaningfull left wing party to speak of, doufusses. The US is a country with two extreme right wing parties that bascially only care about the rich. The democrats are for the most part just spineless right wing suckups to the republicans. Besides, you can’t be ‘left wing’ and not care about the poor, that would be a contradiction in terms.

Discharged Reason” is basically a retarded verson of Minor Threat’s “Guilty of being white”, it basically says: “Quit complaining about racism, get a job (or 3 while you’re at it)”. Well guys, for your information: African Americans are twice as likely to live in poverty compared to the average American. And I don’t think it’s because they’re to busy complaining.

It’s really, really hard to get by in a lot of parts in the US (unless you think getting 2 or 3 jobs to get by is not hard), detroit, for example, is basically a development country on par with Angola. Not much jobs to be found. Something that also never quits bugging me, is that right wingers always say that there’s never enough jobs (and thus, taxes for the wealthy elite should be cut: it magically creates more jobs you know?) and at the same time whine that people on wellfare are mostly lazy parasites that could easily get a job if they only wanted to… Please explain? 

Next pollitical song is called “Eroded Liberty“ but I don’t see what the song has nothing to do with eroded liberty in any way. The ‘HWC’-song “When freedom dies” seems to be more relevant then ever since Bush passed the Patriot Act. But instead of say, a re-write of said song with some specific references to the current situation thrown in we get this:

“Welcome to the age of an american empire            

not a day will pass when bombs don’t seem to fly

Scream about the rights of victims and their pain

But your actions are where the causes lay“

Lyrically, this is basically the same retarded cr*p we had to put up with in that other shitty song, “price of freedom” but it seems to have a “hey, France, shut the f**k up” message added to it.
The words “Your actions are where the causes lay” make it even more embarrasing: it puts the blame for the two wars America so thoughtlessly yet willingly indulged in on errr…. colonialism? Riiiiight. Well dudes, colonialism was atrocious and my own country is still pretty senseless about it (mass mudering tyrant King Leopold II is still pretty much taboo here) but if the causes for these conflicts really lay in colonialism why don’t we have, say, congolese terrorists bombing the headquaters of the Nato in Brussels or something? Because that’s were the most genocidal episodes of European collonialism took place.

“Algeria and Viet Nam – Africe, the Middle East”

Vietnam? Excuse me? The only time when an American has the right to say the word ‘Vietnam’ is when it’s preceded by the words “It’s really a shame that we never paid for the 20 years of senseless killing in…”. Also, the stuff the French did in the mere 8 years they fought in Vietnam is nothing compared what you sc*mbags did in twenty.

(Deformities like these are not the result of Agent Orange, they’re probably caused by malnutrition. It must be true, American scientists told me.)

Also, wich of King George II’s wars does this song advocate? Which of your sh*tty, irresponsible, unethical, pointless, unprovoked armed conflicts are you defending here? Since you refer to France I’m guessing Iraq? If so, what does Europe’s colonial past have to do with the 2 official -very lame- excuses for the war in Iraq: your ex-ally Saddam Hussein’s (non-existing) ties to Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks and his (equally fictional) WOMD’s for crying out loud? You’ll have to do better than that.

(Dick Cheney and Saddam during an offical visit. Meanwhile Saddam was gassing Kurds. For some reason, it didn’t matter back then.)

“Belief in their empire covers them in cloth
Forget their powers and morals for the part
History shows us this has always been our harm
When we put up with this and the UN in charge

Don’t like what we have done – we’re not the only ones
before you raise you rage – look closely at your past“

I can’t make too much out of it but hey, isn’t that cute? Bitching about Europe’s so -called fingerpointing AND at the same scapegoating the UN again for…erh …? and to top it, through very twisted reasoning (if any) blaming Europe for the fact that you Americans got attacked by a Billionaire from Saudi Arabia and the fact that you somehow got cought up in two wars with… afghanistan and Iraq?

…PLEASE. Next song is another funny one, which is a good thing. I’m glad there’s no more so-called ‘social commentary’ left on this album, I can only take that much right wing stupidity in one day.

(these guys used to be cool)

The only thing that I’ve learned from this album is that if anyone needed to open their eyes, both to the past AND the present it’s the guys in NUCLEAR ASSAULT.

Conclusion: apart from a few songs, the lyrics on this album are the musical equivalent of this picture:

Yuch.

CAPITAL SCUM are one of Belgium’s most legendary and respected Hardcore punk bands. They’ve been around since the early eighties and their records “Clutch The Flag” and “Tjerno Kills” are some of the most profilic records of the Belgian’s HC scene.
Talking to us is singer Peter “Pies” Laeremans.  

1. Can you give us a brief history of the band? How did you guys meet? Were you the first Belgian HC band?
Me and my brother Larrie who plays the guitar in Capital Scum both had a big passion for punk rock. We started playing music together at home. He played his guitar and I shouted out my first lyrics. Later on we found some friends @ the punk-rock pub Het Paenhuys, with the same taste in music and decided to start a band and play for real. I think it was May 1984 we played our first live show. Probably we were together with Zyklome A one of the first hardcore-Punk bands in Belgium.

We are 28 years later now and had a lot of line up changes.
Over the years CS counted 10 different band members.
Current line up is : Pies : Vocals, Larrie : Guitar, Seger : Drums, Jurgenowski : Bass.

2. How did you get into punk and how did your environment react to it?
Bands like Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Damned made me decide to be a part of the punkrock scene. My mother hated it. But we were hated in the city were we lived also. A bunch of noisy guys with leather jackets. We got banned from the pubs all the time. And later on with all the Hageland Hardcore shows taking place in the centre of Scherpenheuvel. Even the priest wanted the punks out of there.

(Capital Scum & crew)

3. What were you main musical influences when you started out?
When we started out our influences were bands like Discharge, GBH, Exploited. Later on We got more and more into American Hardcore and this also started to influence our music.English Punk + American Hardcore = Hageland hardcore. ; )

(the mighty GBH)

4. What do your lyrics deal with?
Most of the lyrics deal about daily life horrors like animal abuse, pop-stars we hate, war, nuclear disaster, alcohol, prison life and shit like that. And also a few songs about vampires and witches.

6. According to a friend of mine there was not only a lot of animosity between punks, metalheads & skins in the early days of HC but also a lot of animosity between hardcore punks and so called- ‘old school’ punks, was this the case in Belgium?
What did you make these things back in the days?
In the early eighties there was a lot of violence @ shows between punks and skins.The most violent crowd ever was the first time GBH came to Belgium. A bunch of Skins came in and started to fight right away. Colin from GBH told the punks to throw them out and so they did. It was was a bloody massacre and some people say one guy died (I heard some rumours from other people about a guy that died that night, indeed -J.D.). I don’t know if this is true. And yes sometimes there was trouble between punks underneath. Crass punks hated Oi punks and vice versa.People are people and they’ll always find a reason to start trouble. But in daily life we also had a lot of trouble with metal-heads who in those days hated punks. Later on with bands like D.R.I., Anthrax and S.O.D. we got the crossover thing and punks and metal-heads started to get along much better. My opinion about this? I’m a world-peace kind of guy. I hate violence. People should have some beers together and have fun. (Damn right! -J.D.)

7. What was/is your opinion on the so-called ‘crossover thrash’ movement? Do you think your music qualifies as crossover thrash?
I liked the crossover trash movement a lot.It was cool to see two scene’s come together. And produce very good music also. But Capital Scum always stayed to his roots and kept playing hardcore-punk. Larrie is just not the guy to play metal guitar. Old school hardcore to the bone. The American fanzine Maximum rock’n’roll called our music ‘thrash’ in the early eighties. But this was a long time before the crossover thrash period. And live it really was ‘trash’ sometimes, hahaha!
Music changes all the time and some people go along with the flow. Always starting new bands, playing new styles. We don’t do this. Old school hardcore punk should never die. We played in Germany a few weeks ago and some old fan from the eighties came to me and said “music like this just don’t exist any more!”.So it makes me kinda proud we still keep on playing this fantastic old school style.

9. What countries have you toured and wich was your favourite place yet?
In all those years we only played Belgium, Holland and Germany. Mostly we drive there for the weekend and return home for work on Monday. So we never did a long tour. Favourite place is a difficult one.
We had had so many fantastic show’s over the years. But we always love to play @ the Pits Kortrijk. We have a lot of friends there. And people sure know how to drink and party over there.

10. What bands have you shared the bill with over the years?
The Insane, Government Issue, Inferno, BGK, Indigesti, Suicidal Tendencies, Raw Power, Poison Idea, Sick On The Bus, Leftover Crack, Oi Polloi, Amebix, Rattus, Conflict, Direct Control, The Despised, War all the time, Fracas, Toxic Waste, Youth Brigade and so much more…

11. Any funny stories from the road?
Last time we played Germany I took a six-pack Delirium Tremens (strong Belgian beer) with me. Because I knew I was going to have a hard time getting drunk on the German beer. After the show there was this guy smoking a joint @ the after party backstage.I gave him a bottle Delirium tremens and said “If you drink this, you die!”.He said to me “We Germans never die” and drunk the beer. He was sitting there like 10 Min with a very stupid look on his face. And suddenly slammed his face right into the table. The guy was out-cold. And I replied “What was that about Germans?”. ; )

12. Can you tell us a bit about your horrorpunk side project?
Punk-rock and Horror movies are two of my passions.
The Misfits proved they go perfectly together.
So this was a dream I had and asked some old friends to team-up and do this side project. The Monster was called Blood Curse. We made like 20 songs I think and did 15 show’s.I had a great time singing about Vampires, Witches, Duvel, Murder, Satan, Jason voorhees and other creatures of the night.It was not like we copied the Misfits or anything. It was more like Discharge meets The Misfits. But after a few years the flame was gone and we called it quits. A shame the songs were never recorded and released.We had made some really amazing songs.But hey, a few of them(“Burn the witch” and “Vampirella has risen”) we still play now with Capital Scum.It was a cool experience going on stage covered in blood.
I also think the Punk scene in Belgium was not ready for stuff like this.But after the band broke up some people came up to me and told me they liked blood Curse a lot. So I guess we did not so bad after all.

13. What are your favourite Belgian bands?
There’s a lot of good bands in Belgium.My favourite bands are mostly bands we shared the stage with.Bands like Strangle The Parrot(Rock),Tod Pole (Hardcore), Abracadavre (Doom), The Red Light Rumors (Hill-billy Rock), Bruce (Punk).. to name a few..

(Peter/Pies’ art. Not for kids.)

14. I’ve noticed that you are also a cartoonist, are you publishing your work or is it just for fun? Who would you say influenced you artwise?
Yes, I love to draw and it’s just for the fun of it.
I have this thing with fictive monsters, so I also love to draw them.
I started drawing Monsters when I still was a kid.
When I was 10 years old in school we get to choose what ever we wanted to draw every Friday.The choice was easy, Vampires, Zombies, Werewolf’s.But after a wile the teacher called my parents to come over to school for a talk about me. She told them I was a very sick kid and would probably become a psycho or killer as an adult.My parents were furious and told me never to draw monsters again.My heart was broken. Creativity gets destroyed in school. Walk in line and don’t become an individual! The next Friday it was free drawing time again and I drew a vampire. The female teacher slapped me in the face and shredded my art to pieces. I wanted to rape and kill her! (The kill and rape thing was a joke! hehehe). Now 36 years later I created this Monster Planet cartoons with monster characters in it like Beelzeburps, The Yellow Demon and Blaculandra. I have a facebook page named Darkman Pies were you can check em out. I use bright colours to bring dark subjects and jokes. My influences are all the comics I read in my life and I managed to create my own style. The teacher was wrong about me, I’m no psycho or killer! Or was she right after all?

15. What are your favourite comics?
Marvel comics (Spider-man Thor and The Fantastic four) were the first comics I got from my parents when I was a kid. They blew me completely away. Heroes, Monsters, gorgeous women. Great stuff!
Spider-man: a guy who sticks to walls and fights monsters. But having a hard time paying his bills and keeping a girlfriend in daily life. I still read them today. They have some of the best writers and artists in the business. Great shit!
But I’m also a big fan of Horror stuff like the comic magazines Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella with masters like Richard Corben, Berni Wrightson, Frank Frazetta.
I wrote with Richard Corben in the eighties and bought a lot of signed art from him.Great guy, great art. Monsters and naked people all the way! And there’s Satanika from Glenn Danzig’s company Verotik. But right now I’m reading Spider-man Blue by Eisner award winning team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. There’s nothing better than a good Comic book before you go to sleep.Or wait, there’s one thing! ; ) (…beer? -J.D.)

(Richard Corben: like Frank Frazetta on crack – J.D.).