Tagged with Wade Michael Page

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

The aftermath of the Reclaim Australia (RA)/United Patriots Front (UPF) rallies of July 18/19 has produced some interesting results.

• To begin with, the President of the UPF, Shermon Burgess (AKA ‘The Great Aussie Patriot’), has declared that the boys will be rallying again in Cronulla in a few months. How NSW authorities and especially Cronulla locals react to this news will be fascinating to watch. Burgess himself has previously boasted of his attendance at the ‘riot’/’White Civil Uprising’ in Cronulla. See also : Cronulla Anniversary: A Kiwi Perspective (December 27, 2006) | Communists on Cronulla (December 3, 2006).

• Somewhat remarkably, a few days after July 18, Burgess published a video confessing to having engaged in a group assault upon a group of ‘anti-fascists’ in Melbourne. An edited version of the video is below:

Given the intense media scrutiny surrounding the weekend’s events — and the considerable criticism to which police have been subject — it seems possible that police may be compelled to take a closer look at the alleged incident Burgess refers to in the video: time will tell.

• It’s also remarkable that Burgess has chosen to promote a song perfomed by defunct Belgian reich ‘n’ rollers Kill Baby Kill. KBK were a neo-Nazi band that split following the suicide of its lead singer, Dieter Samoy. His decision to kill himself apparently occurred after he learned that he would be forced to abandon his teaching career after being convicted of a racist assault. The band toured Australia several years ago in a tour organised by local neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour and the (Southern Cross) Hammerskins. The Hammerskins gained some small notoriety in 2012 after one of its members, Wade Michael Page, shot dead worshippers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. See also : Dieter Samoy : Still Dead Baby, Dead (January 15, 2012) | Dieter Samoy : Dead Baby Dead (January 20, 2010) | Wade Michael Page and the (Southern Cross) Hammerskins (August 15, 2012).

GAPKBK

• A few articles of interest:

Inside the strange dynamic of Reclaim Australia’s rallies, Martin McKenzie-Murray, The Saturday Paper, July 25, 2015.

Trainspotters note: “At the top was a thick picket line of counter-protesters – largely a mix of anarchists and Socialist Alliance members, but not restricted to them.” A majority of socialists present were members/supporters of Socialist Alternative and the Socialist Party (though members of the Alliance were undoubtedly present).

Reclaim Australia: ‘concerned mums and dads’ or a Trojan horse for extremists?, Joshua Robertson, The Guardian, July 24, 2015.

Comment: Robertson’s article includes extensive quotes from John Oliver, described as an ‘RA spokesman’. Unmentioned is his role as the sometime President of the ‘Patriots Defence League of Australia’, a handful of whose members were present on July 18 in Melbourne. Several months ago, Oliver established a GoFundMe campaign in an attempt to obtain my d0x:

johnoliver

(Note that ‘Australians Against Islam’ is described as a splinter group from RA in Brisbane, est following the July 19 rally.) ‘Concerned dad’ John — whose staunch opposition to racism, fascism, neo-Nazism and to the intimate involvement of his patriotik comrades in neo-Nazi and fascist politics can surely never be questioned — also expressed the view that I should be hunted down like a dog, have my testicles removed and then attached to my forehead:

unhappycamper1

Top bloke, John.

As for the PDLA, its ‘Eastern Victoria Charter’ was present on July 18, or at least its President, Damien Kourevellis, and its Vice-President, Some Other Bloke, were. (On Kourevellis, see also : Court told violent man not detained, Steve Butcher, The Age, March 26, 2009.) Here they are: a) pictured walking down an alley and; b) having a yarn with neo-Nazi Glenn Anderson:

pdlajul18 [Above img via Wardenclyffe Photography.]

GlennPDLA

Reclaim Australia re-energises radical nationalism, Troy Whitford, The Conversation, July 24, 2015.

Trainspotters note: “Reclaim Australia’s position is probably best articulated through the propaganda arm, The Nationalist Alternative, which was established last year. It argues that the agenda of Australian nationalism is to promote Australia as ‘… an organic nation founded upon Western/European ideals, and created by it’s [sic] descendants primarily the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic ethnicity as well as fellow Europeans from northern, central, southern and eastern Europe.'”

While RA’s position may arguably be best expressed by or thru Nationalist Alternative (NAlt), it is not RA’s propaganda arm, nor was it established in 2014. Rather, NAlt was founded in 2008/9 in anti-mosque agitation in Williamstown. Further, from the time of the emergence of both RA and Burgess adopting ‘The Great Aussie Patriot’ persona, the principal propaganda arm for RA has been ‘Nationalist Republican Guard’ AKA ‘European Australian Civil Rights League’ AKA Melbourne-based neo-Nazi (and criminal anti-Semite) Neil Erikson. Erikson left the group last year, but not before he and some of his comrades outed Mark Hootsen as NAlt’s leader. See also : Nationalist Alternative throw their former Führer under the bus #antifa (December 14, 2014) | Nationalist Alternative : “just a bunch of students from Melbourne” (July 8, 2009).

• ReclaimWhat on Facebook maintains a close watch on the various shenanigans of RA and the UPF.

• Later today I’ll republish some of the comments of UPF leader Blair Cottrell on the subject of Jews, politics, Jews, nationalism and Jews.

Goodbye Monsieur Venner, Hello French Hammerskins!

French far-right historian Dominique Venner (April 16, 1935–May 21, 2013) has committed suicide in a rather spectacular fashion. Venner’s action was apparently prompted by his fear that France was becoming ghey and Muslamic. You can read his suicide note here; The Huffington Post records some thoughts here, including the reaction of others on the French far right to his death. For her part, Marine Le Pen, leader of the French fascist party Front National, reckons Venner was a top bloke, and his action laudable. Others agree, but it may be that the example may have to be repeated several thousand times before Venner’s argument really cuts through…

As an aside, and further to the margins of the political right, a few days ago (May 18/19) neo-Nazis in France gathered under the sheltering umbrella of the French Hammerskins. Or did they? Accounts vary. It seems that, while there was meant to be a large gathering of European neo-Nazis on the weekend, there was instead only a small meeting near Montpellier, involving perhaps 100 or so key members of various neo-Nazi organisations from across Europe, meeting overnight. A French antifa website (fafwatch) reckons it was organised by the French Hammerskins. A few hundred antifa demonstrated on Friday and Sunday in Perpignan – which is where they thought the meeting would take place (instead, it took place in a community room, one booked, typically, under false pretences).

In Australia, two weeks ago the boneheads belonging to the Australian franchise (Southern Cross Hammerskins) rocked out in Queensland (May 4), while more recently in the United States (the birthplace of the Hammerskins) the FBI has released some documents regarding the boneheads’ mass-murdering comrade-in-arms Wade Michael Page. Note that Ultimately, the FBI found there was no conspiracy behind the shooting, which officials labeled an act of “domestic terrorism.” In November, the FBI said Page acted alone in the rampage, finding no evidence to suggest the attack was “directed or facilitated by any white supremacist group.”

Of nazis with guns, David Sterman (The Atlantic, April 23, 2013) writes:

Right-wing extremists are more likely than violent Islamist extremists–or, as they are sometimes called, jihadists–to have military experience. They are also better armed, and are responsible for more incidents. The past two decades have seen multiple attacks from right-wing extremist veterans, from Wade Michael Page, who trained at Fort Bragg, to the group of former and active-duty soldiers in Georgia, who collected weapons to carry out a plan to assassinate President Obama. In 2011, Kevin Harpham, who had served in the army, placed a bomb along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. During the 1990s, violent extremism in the militia movement and other right-wing movements relied heavily upon those who served in the military. Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil before 9/11, was a military veteran whose libertarian views were also heavily influenced by a novel by a former American Nazi Party official. Eric Rudolph, the anti-abortion extremist who bombed the 1996 Olympics, had also enlisted in the army.

See also : Happy Birthday Mister Hitler! (April 20, 2011) | Dieter Samoy : Still Dead Baby, Dead (January 15, 2012). For an interesting account of the ways in which shootings are portrayed by the media and their meanings, see Who Becomes The Face Of A Horrific Attack?, WUNC.org, May 21, 2013.

Crew 38, Where Are You?

Nazis eh?

One People’s Project (US) has added another member of the master race to their shit-list: Pete Gaughenbaugh. According to OPP, Pete’s:

• a Hammerskin from Florida;
• the webmaster of the Hammerskin site Crew38;
• a registered sex offender.

Actually, that last bit is (also) according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Registration & Compliance Unit.

Hardly the first nazi to be convicted of such crimes.

The Hammerskins last hit the news in August when Hammerskin Wade Michael Page committed mass murder in Wisconsin before emulating his hero and committing suicide. Dieter Samoy, the vocalist for Belgian nazi band Kill Baby Kill!, also opted to kill himself, after he was convicted of assault and toured Australia for the local franchise of the Hammerskins — but before he went to jail.

The last word goes to OPP:

The Hammerskin Nation is in the news lately because one of their number, Wade Page, went to a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and shot and killed six people before turning the gun on himself. These particular boneheads think that after that they can go through life like business as usual, which is why Gaughenbaugh is promoting this year’s Hammerfest in Boise, Idaho as if nothing has changed. The last Hammerfest, which was held in its usual spot in Florida, featured two of the bands … Page played in, Definite Hate and 13 Knots. This year, another one of the bands Page was in, Max Resist, will be in Boise, and Gaughenbaugh is on hand to promote it. But you can’t be too surprised the Hammerskins don’t care about how bad this looks. If they don’t have a problem with a drug addict child sex offender running their website, what is it to them if you don’t like them working with the bands of a murderer?

PS. If the person who contacted me earlier this month wants to get in touch again, please do so.

Wade Michael Page and the (Southern Cross) Hammerskins

[This post was made possible by contributions from Anonymous, HS and PS. As of this date, the main Hammerskins site hammerskins.net is down but the Southern X Hammerskins site is up. Wade Michael Page’s record label, Label 56, has also been restored to Facebook. See also this xclnt post by Rose City Antifa: Wade Michael Page, The Hammerskin Nation, and Pacific Northwest Neo-Nazis, August 16, 2012.]


Above : Members and supporters of Southern Cross Hammerskins in Melbourne. A pseudonymous commenter claims that Kenneth Stewart (centre) has since left the organisation.

Given the horrible and spectacular nature of his crime (as well, of course, as its target and location), Wade Michael Page has managed to generate a massive amount of media reportage in the last week. And despite being of varying quality, this commentary is probably never quite as bad as his music — which is pretty damn bad.

As for his status as a neo-Nazi, it now seems certain that Page was a member of the organisation of boneheads known as ‘Hammerskin Nation’, becoming a full member of the Northern Hammerskins in October 2011 — less than a year before he went on his shooting rampage in Wisconsin.

While having the centre of its activities and most of its members there, the Hammerskins, established in the late 1980s, are not an exclusively US phenomenon. Rather, in addition to six regional chapters in the US (Confederate, Eastern, Midland, Northern, Northwestern and Western), the Nation boasts franchises in about a dozen other countries. Currently, Hammerskins may be found in Canada, France, Germany (est. 1992), Hungary (2006), Italy, New Zealand, Portugal (2005), Spain, Sweden (2009), Switzerland (1990) and, of course, Australia (1992).

The legal situation of these groups varies.

In Germany, the group is considered to be an unlawful association, though this fact means that it has simply entered into the (far larger) neo-Nazi underground. The Hammerskins have also been outlawed and members imprisoned as a result in both Spain and Portugal. The leader of the Portuguese Hammerskins, Mário Machado, is currently serving a seven-year sentence for coercion, robbery, kidnapping and illegal possession of weapons.

Closer to home, relatively little has been made of Page’s status as a Hammerskin in the Australian media. The Age has republished an AFP report which mentions it, while news.com.au carries a not-very-well-written story by AAP which describes the Hammerskins as “a white power rock music group that idealises those like the Vikings and Nazis whom they consider to have been warriors for the Aryan race”(!). For his part, Matthew Hall has written something on the ‘Australian link to US Sikh temple shooting’, noting, inter alia, that one of Page’s bands, 13 Knots, recorded a split 7″ with Melbourne Hammerskin project Kilgore on German label Wewelsburg, and that another local nazi band, Deaths Head, played gigs with 13 Knots while touring the US.

Hall fails to mention that Page was a Hammerskin.

The failure to make much of Page The Hammerskin is slightly (but only slightly) surprising given the hullabaloo over the Hammerskins’ staging of the Hammered Festival in Brisbane just four months ago and the fact that their chief gathering takes place in Melbourne in less than a month (September 8). In a related vein, on newmatilda.com Suvendrini Perera asks Why Didn’t The Sikh Shooting Rate?.

More broadly, as previously noted, Page’s heroic act has generated vast amounts of media reportage. Some of the more interesting accounts I’ve read include those of a liberal on Gawker who’s written a rather bad article titled ‘In Defense of Neo-Nazi Music’ and Nick R. Martin, who traces in some small detail the violent criminal history of the Hammerskins in Two American Terror Cases, One Brand Of Hate (TPMMuckraker, August 10, 2012).

The Columbus-like discovery of a neo-Nazi subculture has produced some anguished commentary, but the history of such groups is not really that obscure, and neither is the occasionally very close connection between such tendencies and institutionalised state violence, whether in Greece or elsewhere. Martin A. Lee’s 1997 book The Beast Reawakens (Introduction) provides a useful and illuminating account of the ways in which elements of the Nazi regime sought to perpetuate its legacy, often in collaboration with Western powers. In a more contemporary vein, the website of the leadership of the world socialist movement draws links between Page’s rampage and the US military in ‘Wisconsin shooting reveals connections between US military and fascist groups’ (Eric London, August 10, 2012).

J.M. Berger draws further connections between Page, the Hammerskins and the American Front (AF) here; Berger makes reference to the arrests in May 2012 of members of AF in Florida (see : ‘Floriduh, Nazis, and the Goddess Kali’, antifa notes (may 14, 2012)) and the fact that Page’s band Definite Hate played a gig organised by the Hammerskins in March 2011. Page also apparently paid tribute to dead nazi David Lynch.

As I see it, the negative publicity surrounding Page’s shooting spree will not aid the Hammerskins’ public image, but it’s unlikely to do much harm to the integrity of the network as a whole. After all, Page is not the first Hammerskin to have killed. Previously, Hammerskins were convicted of the murder of Donald Thomas in Arlington, Texas in June 1991 and of Douglas Garrett in Birmingham, Alabama in December 1991. Others have been convicted of violent, racially-motivated assault and damage to property (especially that belonging to Jewish institutions). Further, members already understand that they belong to a tiny political minority; their pool of potential recruits is limited to the bonehead subculture, with Hammerskins identifying and cultivating positive relations with those individual men (the Hammerskins are strictly Boys Only) considered most dedicated to White supremacy, and seeking to enroll them in their feeder organisation ‘Crew 38’ (so named in reference to the third and eighth letters of the alphabet; ‘c’ and ‘h’ referring to crossed hammers, the Hammerskins’ insignia).

That said, a decision by US authorities to formally designate the group as ‘domestic terrorists’ would significantly alter this picture,* which helps to explain why the Hammerskins have locked their online forum and why other efforts are being made to distance them from their latest star recruit in Page. This includes the decision by Melbourne-based Hammerskin Jesse to withdraw from sale muzak made by Page he previously sold on his website 9% Productions.

When in December last year I raised concerns over the organisation by local neo-Nazis of a gig at The Tote, and made reference to the participation of Geelong resident Taigen Gould in the band Ravenous, I was angrily informed by one of his friends “Get a life you pathetic scum bag, you do not know these people! They are the kindest people on this planet and I will stand by them through anything!” I now think, given Page’s murderous rampage, it would be difficult for even the most naive of individuals to believe that the Hammerskins are some of the kindest men on Earth — difficult, but certainly not impossible. In any event, the ties between local Hammerskins and their parent organisation are very close, as evidenced by this photograph of Taigen with someone who appears to closely resemble a member of Page’s band Definite Hate…

In the US, the nazis who played at Hammerfest 2011 (October 1) were Page’s band Definite Hate and Hungarian boneheads Vérszerződés. According to the FBI informant who infiltrated AF, the gig was held at the Outlaws OMC HQ in Central Florida. A previous Hammerskins gig on St Patrick’s Day (March 19, 2011) took place at a bar called Rat’s Place (or possibly Pat’s Place) in Christmas and starred both Definite Hate and End Apathy (along with Hammerskin Forest Fogarty‘s band Attack). Weirdly, in July 2010 the same informant claimed that Fogarty was preparing to form a new band called ‘Dead Jew’, and that this would involve members of both Cannibal Corpse and Deicide(!). The informant also claims that in September 2010 he was invited by Hammerskin Coby Stonecypher to his house and met with two German members of the Hammerkins — as noted, an unlawful association in Germany — providing further evidence of the international nature of the Hammerskins network. Stonecypher himself is one of the leaders of the Hammerskins in Florida.

The strong links between Hammerskins in that part of the world and the Outlaws is slightly odd given that the Outlaws have chapters in Asia, and fraternisation with non-Whites is usually regarded as strictly verboten by groups like the Hammerskins. In fact, a fight between a Hammerskin and a member of sometime rival group Volksfront took place in 2009 at a meeting of supporters of Holocaust denialist David Irving, seemingly on the basis of this kind of fraternisation (note that Irving has been denied a visa to tour Australia several times in the past, though fellow denialist Paul Fromm has not).

There have been numerous recent confrontations in central Florida that suggest a war is brewing between former longtime allies Volksfront and the Confederate Hammerskins. Michael Lawrence, one of the original founders of the Confederate Hammerskins in 1987, switched his allegiance to Volksfront in 2007, and became the group’s unofficial leader in Florida. Randal Krager, who co-founded Volksfront in 1994 while serving a prison sentence, moved from Portland, Oregon, to Florida with his wife and son to live next door to Lawrence.

Since Lawrence’s defection, his longtime friend and Confederate Hammerskins member, Richie Myers, has steadily gained power throughout the state as the group’s Orlando leader. Myers and his second-in-command, Coby Stonecypher, regularly associate with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club gang. Lawrence and Krager do not. A public indication of trouble brewing between Confederate Hammerskins and Volksfront appeared in a Stormfront posting advertising Volksfront’s annual Martyr’s Day event, to be held this year in Pensacola. The announcement said the gathering was “family friendly [by that we mean no drunks, no non-racial ‘clubs’, no deviate or degrading behavior].” Many readers took that as disapproval of outlaw motorcycle clubs attending recent white supremacist gatherings, which has happened at Confederate Hammerskins events.

In Australia, an agreement between Volksfront and the Hammerskins means that Volksfront — its principal organiser, Chris Smith, blogs as ‘anti-antifa australia’, runs the nazi distro ‘Heathen Noise’ and was convicted of assault and robbery in December 2010 — limits its activities to NSW. Note that, as part of an international day of action against racism and fascism, in Portland, the birthplace of Volksfront, antifascists organised to expose leading members of the group in that city. See : Rose City Antifascists Expose Nazi Neighbors and Coworkers During Day of Action, Call for Community Responses (August 14, 2012).

As for bikies, other OMCs, such as the Hells Angels, appear happy to host neo-Nazi gigs in at least some of their venues (‘The Other Place’), although not without opposition. One such gig in Barcelona in October 2011 was forcefully disrupted by antifa, prompting the intervention of the riot police. (Note that the Hammerskins are outlawed in Spain, and in February, 15 of its members had previous jail terms imposed on them because of their membership upheld by the Supreme Court.)

To Be Continued…

See also : Op-Ed: Shine a light on hateful white power music, Mark Pitcavage (ADL), St Louis Jewish Light, August 12, 2012 | Power of hatecore music to recruit young, James Dao, Serge Kovaleski, The Sydney Morning Herald (The New York Times), August 11, 2012 | Label 56 interview with Wade Michael Page (August 7, 2012) | A Brief History Of Neo-Nazi Music In Australia (December 2, 2010).

Label 56 interview with Wade Michael Page

Further Update (August 7) : Facebook has apparently deleted the page belonging to Wade’s record label (Label 56). The label’s website also appears to have deleted the interview with Wade (see below) it conducted in April 2010. The label is run by a bonehead from Maryland called Clemie Richard Haught (aka Rick Haught), who in turn is a member of a neo-Nazi skinhead group calling themselves the ‘Maryland Skinheads’.

Update : According to One People’s Project, Wade was a member of the Hammerskins, a global neo-Nazi network with origins in the United States. Label 56, Wade’s neo-Nazi record label, has issued a statement http://www.label56.com/2012/08/press-statement/ claiming to be nice (unlike Wade)… Oh, and the ADL has lots more here, including a photo of one of Wade’s fellow band members wearing a t-shirt belonging to Brisbane band Open Season, who will be playing the ISD gig in Melbourne next month. In any case ‘Shooting Suspect Wade Michael Page’s White-Power Past’ (Eliza Shapiro, The Daily Beast, August 6, 2012) provides a useful summary of Page’s glorious career as a neo-Nazi propagandist. NB. Label 56 is run by a bonehead from Maryland called Clemie Richard Haught (aka Rick Haught).

…

Wade Michael Page is the dead neo-Nazi allegedly responsible for murdering six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday. As well as loving guns and hating non-Whites, Wade was a nazi artiste who reportedly played with numerous reich ‘n’ roll bands including Youngland and the Blue Eyed Devils. Youngland (minus Page) played the Hammered Festival in Brisbane in April to celebrate Uncle Adolf’s 123rd and the (Southern Cross) Hammerskins’ 20th birthday in Australia; Blue Eyed Devils (minus Page) played the Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig in Melbourne in 2010. The 2012 ISD gig is being held on September 8.

Wade’s last band was called End Apathy…

This interview with End Apathy was conducted by Label 56 in April of 2010.

Good evening Wade, this interview is long overdue due to my own fault but with all the good stuff going on with your band now I don`t think the timing could be more perfect. I`d like to do this interview to let everyone know about End Apathy from the very beginning up until now. It was at least three years ago when I first got in touch with you after hearing your music on your [MySpace] page [http://www.myspace.com/endapathyband: deleted in the 24 hours following the massacre]. Can you give the readers a quick background to End Apathy? More specifically- how long ago did you actually come up with the idea for End Apathy (and why you choose the name End Apathy) and start writing music for it?

End Apathy began in 2005 and the concept was based on trying to figure out what it would take to actually accomplish positive results in society and what is holding us back. A lot of what I realized at the time was that if we could figure out how to end people[‘]s apathetic ways it would be the start towards moving forward. Of course after that it requires discipline, strict discipline to stay the course in our sick society. So, in a sense it was [a] view of psychology and sociology. But I didn’t want to just point the finger at what other people should do, but [sic] also I was willing to point out some of my faults on how I was holding myself back. And that is how I wrote the song “Self Destruct”.

As you said End Apathy was entirely your own creation. What was your inspiration for wanting to do the band?

Yes, it was entirely my own idea. The inspiration was based on frustration that we have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a society in whole.

The music you write is very clean sounding and to me has an oldschool 80`s California skate punk sound to it. Am I totally off base here? Lol. How would you describe your music and can you tell us why you choose to write in this style?

When I first started writing these songs I didn’t have a set plan on the style of sound, it just came together. I think it is mainly based on the mix of my influences and that is 80′s punk, metal, and Oi.

What kind of topics do you write about in your lyrics?

The topics vary from sociological issues, religion, and how the value of human life has been degraded by being submissive to tyranny and hypocrisy that we are subjugated to.

As mentioned you have been writing music for End Apathy over 5 years but until now it has been a solo project. I`m very happy you stayed persistent with it because I personally love the music style you create for the band. Your persistence has paid off as you now have a complete line up. Can you let everyone know what is going on with End Apathy now?

End Apathy as a band has taken a long time to develop, mainly because it was a one man project. But now there is a full line up with Brent on bass and Ozzie on drums – both from Definite Hate and 13 Knots. We have the luxury of living close to each other and are able to have practice often, as a result we are ready to record our first release which is a 7″ split with Definite Hate, then another song that we’re contributing to the UPRISE compilation and our full length CD will come out after that.

I`m really glad that worked out for you. Just in this short time you have already done a live show playing with Definite Hate and you guys are all practicing together. How long do you think it will be before we will see End Apathy on stage live?

End Apathy will be playing at the Independent Artist Uprise fest, but we will also be playing at some local clubs here in North Carolina and possibly playing the midwest this fall.

You guys are also getting ready to do some recording for both bands. Label 56 will be releasing a split 7″ this summer between End Apathy and Definite Hate. We are also planning to do your full length sometime early next year. Is there anything you want to let the readers know about these[?] What else do you guys have planned?

Even though End Apathy, Definite Hate, and 13 Knots share some of the same members each band has it’s own unique style and sound. Our main focus is the upcoming recording and playing shows.

Aside from your band I`d like the readers to know a bit about you. Not many people may be aware but you used to play with Youngland out in California before moving out to the east coast. How long have you yourself been involved in music and are there any other bands you have been involved with?

I had the opportunity to play bass with Youngland for 2 years back in 2001 – 2003 and during that time I filled in for various bands on guitar and bass including Celtic Warrior, Radikahl, Max Resist, Intimidation One, Aggressive Force [and] Blue Eyed Devils. I have been playing music since I was 13, off and on over the years.

Are you originally from out in California? How did you wind up moving from one side of the country to the complete other?

I am originally from Colorado and had always been independent, but back in 2000 I set out to get involved and wanted to basically start over. So, I sold everything I owned except for my motorcycle and what I could fit into a backpack and went on [s] cross country trip visiting friends and attending festivals and shows. I went to the Hammerfest 2000 in Georgia, over to North Carolina, up to Ohio, down to West Virginia, and out to California and that’s when I joined Youngland.

What do you see as any differences between the east and west coast whether in the music scene or just lifestyle in general?

In some ways things are generally the same, but each area has it’s own unique style and traditions. Influenced by surroundings and events. The southeast is much more laid back and relaxed with more of a hillbilly attitude and that is reflected in the music. SoCal was more of a fast paced, tense environment and that definitely comes across in their music.

Well I`m glad you have made yourself a home out here and things are coming together for you. I hope to see End Apathy around and making music for years. The closing words are yours.

I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone at Label 56 for believing in End Apathy and putting out our music!