January 25, 2017

The Restarts: The 13th Floor Interview

The 13th Floor’s Tim Gruar swaps texts with East London-based punk band The Restarts who are due to tour New Zealand in February…

Hackney punks The Restarts are coming to our shores. Formed in 1995, they are a tight three piece, multi-genre punk outfit based in East London! They play thrashy, anarcho-power chord punk laced with Ska breaks and pogo inducing basslines.

They’ve been hammering their way through the squats of Europe and DIY house shows across North America for over 20 years and have built up a multi-generational fan base as a result. They lend amplification to unheard voices, playing benefit gigs for various social causes and keeping the DIY spirit of punk rock alive and well. Years of hard graft has also seen them on stage in support of such heavy weights as Steve Ignorant’s CRASS, Jello Biafra & GSM, Millions of Dead Cops, The Casualties, Star Fucking Hipsters and The Subhumans.

Their 6^th studio album A Sickness of Mind came out in 2013 on their own No Label Records and in just three short months they have managed to sell out, including a limited edition vinyl pressing. It has been widely cited as their best release to date. 2017 now sees them on their first touring venture to Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.

The band are currently in the air, flying out of Indonesia, so in true DIY style Tim Gruar decided to email Kieran (no surnames, please), the band’s vocalist and bass player and conduct a bit of a Q&A by text and smartphone.

Tim: Kia Ora Ka toa. That’s a greeting in one of the three national languages of New Zealand. Does anyone in the band speak another language?

Kieran: My only prior knowledge of Kia Ora is that it’s a soft drink in the U.K, so it’s great to hear the real meaning. We love learning about different cultures from around the world. Robin (Guitar) speaks Dutch and Jeremy (drums) speaks French. English is their second language. I know Dutch, too. We say “proost” and in French Basque it’s “Osasun”.

Tim: Ok, that’s the ‘icebreaker’. Tell me about the Restarts. Starting with the story behind the name? Is this as obvious as it sounds?

Kieran: Well, I guess the tell-tale signs are in our band artwork, which we did for a Job club cassette cover. In the early 1990’s the U.K. Job Centre started a “back to work” scheme to get people off the dole. So every other month or so you would get what’s called a “Restart Interview” and as we were all signing on at the time. We took that opportunity to take the piss. I mean, everyone knows that the economy is suffering because of low income benefit cheats, right? And all this had nothing to do crooked sociopathic bankers awarding themselves 6 digit annual bonuses while the tax payer bails out their 2008 housing bubble crash! God forbid!

Tim: Please introduce the band – I’ll imagine them taking their bows, etc.

Kieran: I play bass and vocals, Robin plays guitar and vocals and we both co-write the music and lyrics. Jeremy is the newest member on the drums and backing vocals. We plan to record new material this year!

Tim: Tell me the story of how you started and why you chose ‘Punk’.

Kieran: Um, I didn’t really choose punk, it kind of chose me. I bought the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks and from the moment the stylus hit the vinyl I was hooked. I grew up outside of Vancouver, Canada, and just kept craving bigger cities with better punk scenes, which lead me to London U.K. In 1988. Eventually we I formed the Restarts with original members: Darragh and Mik around 1995.

I guess our first demo got us noticed and especially was helped by the success of Napster where people could share music world wide. That was a punk-stick it-to-the corporates kind of thing! So we had people from New Zealand to South America discovering our stuff back in 1997. The most popular songs for our crowds, over the years are Frustration, Crucified, Timewaster, No Confidence, Fuck The Lottery and newer ones, Backwards, Thin ice, Independentzia and Drone Attack.

Our First video was awesome – it was No Confidence– a real diy video shot with us in black and white wearing zombie make up – what more could you possible want?

Tim: Your ‘brand’ of punk remains ‘80’s’ – ‘Bovver Boy’ iconography. The cartoons, the sound, the ‘oi’. Why is that? Is this music still relevant?

Kieran: I think it depends on which release you hear. We often get categorised with very different labels. In Germany we get called ‘AnarchoPunk’, I love that. It feels like we’re enemies of the state or something. in the USA, we are called ‘Street Punk/Oi’ and in the early days we were labelled ‘Grindcore’. We also play a couple ska songs which means we get the ska punk moniker too. So, I guess I like to draw cartoon punk rockers which did mirror some of the 80’s Oi album artwork, but I do feel any genre of music can still be relevant as long as there is enough people into it. The older crowd might think it’s passed its sell by date but if folks wanna play and listen to it then it’s relevant to them.

Tim: 80’s punk was a response to the Thatcherite repression and racism of the latter part of 20th Century in the UK. You started in 1995 (In the optimistic years of Brit Pop (Oasis, Blur, Pulp, etc). Now Britain seems to have returned to that period in the 1980’s with a remixer genre of xenophobia, thanks to BREXIT. Can punk still save Britain’s soul like The Clash once did?

Kieran: Yes. The way I see it, the U.K. has fallen victim to the xenophobic rhetoric that was spouted during the run up to the referendum. Can punk help this problem? Most certainly! It felt punk was getting a bit stale and possibly no longer relevant but now it is needed more than ever to lend a voice to marginalised people especially in the U.K. The London punk scene is so cosmopolitan that it represents all the folks that didn’t want to sacrifice human rights and freedom of travel in exchange for ramped up racism and hyper nationalism. So, yeah. People are pissed off and it’s gonna add fuel to the punk rock fire.

Tim: I see you are currently touring ‘The Colonies’, and Asia. Where else have you been?

Kieran: So, over the past 20 years, we’ve toured around the U.K,. along with an incredible Euro circuit (Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Czech Republic). But we’ve also ventured further afield into Canada, USA, Russia, Istanbul, Scandinavia, Brittany, Austria and now we head to South East Asia and Australasia.

Tim: Whew! That’s more than just jamming into a van and taking to the road, like the ‘old days’, huh? Tell me about life on the road (and in the air – I’ve seen your Facebook photos).

What are the audiences like in each place? For instance: punks in Indonesia or Australia. What are they singing about? What gets you all fired up?

Kieran: First off flying for gigs sucks. We do a lot of weekend gigs on the continent as the flights are so cheap but working with baggage weight restrictions is a pain in the ass. I’d much prefer being in the back of a van where you can load up the ‘merch’, gear, amps and just hit the road. (When it comes to international audiences), so far in Indonesia, the punks seem to have the same beliefs but need to make it work in their own culture. It is predominantly Muslim here (where we are right now on tour) so things like getting alcohol can be quite tricky and expensive. Although we managed to find a local shop owner (right beside a mosque!) who sold us some. Also issues, like sexism and homophobia are much more contentious here. So it makes me proud to see the punks here flagging that up. And that’s just one example of local involvement. We get fired up by what’s happening currently in our lives

Tim: What’s the state of punk these days? The overweight Buzzcocks just toured. Green Day are almost grandad’s. Perry Farrell has retired. Jonny Rotten lives in Spain. Malcom’s gone to the great Rock’n’Roll swindle in the sky. Is the ‘scum dream’ over?

Kieran: Nah mate. This shit has gone viral worldwide; punk has once again taken root but in other countries around the world. It still largely ignored by the music press which is a huge positive. So countries like China, South East Asia, Russia and South America all got it going on. This forces people to work to make shit happen themselves. DIY! The way forward.

Tim: You are playing four gigs here (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin). Have you any idea what you are getting yourself into?

Kieran: A hell of a lot of fun?? We party with enough of you Kiwi nutters in London to what we are getting into!

NZ Tickets are from undertheradar.co.nz, Cosmic Stores and Cosmic Stores.

Wednesday 15th February, Musicians Club, Dunedin
Thursday 16th February, Churchills Live, Christchurch
Friday 17th February, Valhalla, Wellington
Saturday 18th February, Whammy, Auckland

Songs to play.

Frustration – live at Punk Illegal (Sweden)