Die erste Show, die erste Platte und seine größten Einflüsse! Hawser werden am 18. September 2020 ihr neues Album All Is Forgiven veröffentlichen. Der Nachfolger von Young And Restless (2014) und Tough Love (2017), die beide noch über Farewell Records erschienen sind, wird dann beim neuen Label der Band, Isolation Rec., erscheinen.
Wir sprachen anlässlich des bevorstehenden Albums mit Hawser-Frontmann Stijn Willem über seine Hardcore-Punk-Roots und wie er zur Musik und Szene gekommen ist.
AFL: Do you remember the first hardcore / punk show you went to? Is the club still open today?
To be honest, I can’t quite remember but it must have been a local show in 2009. I remember that was the year I was starting to go to shows. There were loads of different small venues around the Rotterdam area. Tex-Mex, Exit, this weird place in Hoogvliet and some venue in Zoetermeer. They’re all gone now. In Germany loads of youth centers are still open but in the Netherlands the government pulled the plug on most of these venue. Only place that’s still open around the Rotterdam area is Baroeg, where they mostly program metal gigs.
AFL: What is your all-time favorite club or location?
There’s a couple venues that I love a lot. Most of them are in Germany. JZ Riot in Lichtenstein is lovely, as is the Chemiefabrik in Dresden. It’s always amazing playing there because you run into a lot of friends and everything is always sorted out super nicely by the promoters. It’s two places where the lineups are always great, the food is good and there’s always a good vibe.
In the Netherlands I really loved Studio Gonz in Gouda and the shows the guys from Gouda Hardcore organized there, mainly because it revived the scene in our area of the Netherlands. It’s a bummer the venue doesn’t do hardcore gigs anymore. If it wasn’t for Gouda Hardcore I’m not sure how the scene here would’ve survived.
My all time favorite venue altogether is the Collosseum Club in Kosice, Slovakia. Great scene, good shows, best people. First time we ever played there I saw a tree trunk getting thrown through the pit and people whipping each other with rubber bycicle tires. After the show I wanted to grab some food and there was a little counter underneath the staircase ín the venue serving veggie burgers for a euro. The whole place is just perfect and the people putting up shows there are the best.
AFL: Do you remember the first hardcore / punk record you got?
Definitely. It was the first demo by a band made up of friends from my high school named Onnodig Krassen. I dropped out two times by that point and when I went to my third high school I got into skateboarding (or pretending I was into skateboarding to be honest). The guys who hang out at the park were also in my school and played in that band. I though they were fucking sick. They played a show in school once and they won this weird bandcontest for the school which I thought was sick.
Funny thing is, the demo I own is the first one ever made. They printed the CD’s themselves and they drew the cover with yellow marker on white paper and then inverted it on a scanner. I own the one with the drawn on cover. They still occasionally play shows, they changed their name to Rott’n’Damned now. Still such a sick band. Check them out on Soundcloud.
AFL: In your opinion what is the perfect hardcore show?
Definitely a club show. Venue of around 150 – 200 capacity that is full. Good vibes, no crew shit. Just a lot of people who have the primal urge to rage against something but do so in a positive manner.
AFL: What is your all-time favorite show you’ve played?
Hard to decide. Think I was really impressed with the first time we played The Sound of Revolution. A lot of people came to check us out on that day and actually waited at the stage we were playing for our set. People went crazy. I was nervous because we had Mauro from Deathtrap filling in without even having rehearsed a single time together. The first note we played the place went off and it felt like people were feeling our band for the first time, on a bigger scale. It was great.
AFL: Is there a show you missed in the past that still makes you angry that you could not be there?
There’s so many, I can’t even begin. I obviously would’ve liked to see one of the European Have Heart shows but I was away at the time. I wish I could’ve seen One King Down when they played shows in Europe again last year. I could go on for ages. I never bought tickets to Taylor Swift when she did the Red tour. Still regret it to this day.
AFL: What band would you like to see again?
Life of Agony. Was amazing when I saw them with my best friend in 2014. Didn’t think I’d ever have the possibility to see them considering they had been inactive since 2011, which was about when I got into them, so when they announced that tour I was super stoked. The set they played was amazing, playing a ton of tunes off River Runs Red. All the original members played. Would love to see them again, playing a similar set. More material off of Ugly would be cool to see to.
AFL: Is there a person who has influenced you especially in hardcore / punk?
Not specifically, no. I would say I’m more influenced by people in bands outside of hardcore.
AFL: What are your top 3 hardcore-punk front men/women?
Hard to answer this question. I could go with a sound I prefer but that just doesn’t cut it in hardcore. I’ll just focus on the scene right now and to be honest I love my homie Tom in Deathtrap as a vocalist. The theatricality he brings is something you rarely see in hardcore which makes the band extremely enjoyable to watch. Niels from Cornered is always hilarious and intimidating on stage. I love Ross Farrar of Ceremony, even though you can’t really call them a hardcore band anymore.
AFL: What is in your opinion the most underrated hardcore-punk band?
Section 8, hands down. Nine Ways To Say I Love You is such a creative, hard record and it’s gone over a lot of people’s heads. I love a band that is able to deliver heavy, punishing riffs without having lyrical themes that are strictly negative and full of hate. I love it when a band is able to incorporate more profound, constructive lyrics while retaining a dark, heavy sound. Chuck in some great singing and Section 8 does just that.
AFL: Are there some newer bands you could mention?
Definitely. Check out Voidcrawler, The Worst Doubt, Lowest Creature, Deathtrap, Deconvolution and Chaver. I’ve been blasting Age Of Apocalypse a lot too, great band if you’re into bands like Only Living Witness, Life of Agony, Sam Black Church, etc.
