DISCHARGE
Interview with vocalist Rat
By Janelle Jones
What a blast to talk to Rat, singer of DISCHARGE and THE VARUKERS. We had plenty to discuss, being that he’s in three, shall we say, pretty cool bands! The main focus of our conversation was hardcore punk revolutionaries DISCHARGE, who currently have out reissues of Disensitise and War Is Hell (Candlelight Records) and have a Japan tour in late September (they played there in 2009 with a dream punk line-up─THE EXPLOITED and GBH). Meanwhile, the long-running VARUKERS have a few gigs planned with ENGLISH DOGS at the end of the year before working on new material. VARUKERS also have a comp coming out on Candlelight called The Damnation Of Our Species, consisting of four albums on a double CD out in October. He also talked a bit about his newer band THE VILE. Read on for details.
So, these two albums came out in 2008, why re-release them now?
We put them out ourselves, we did as much as we could with them and a lot of people couldn’t get a hold of them, so we thought that if Candlelight relaunched them with new artwork and put bonus tracks on them, it would make them more accessible.
Right. So before it just came out in Britain?
A lot of people couldn’t get hold of it. I run a small label called Vile Art Records and I put it out and a lot of people couldn’t get a hold of it for some reason. So it was pretty frustrating. With the backing of someone like Candlelight we could push it a little bit more and get interviews like this, it’s gonna help things along with it hopefully.
I was just wondering about you, how did you first start to sing for DISCHARGE? I’m a big VARUKERS fan and everything, I didn’t know how that came about.
The original DISCHARGE members came back together and did the album Discharge in 2002 which was really good. They sort of just did that album and it was quite a good album to come back with and Kelvin [“Cal”] was supposed to tour and he left just after they recorded it, so Ian Glasper from Terrorizer [magazine] put my name forward to Tez and I got a phone call, “Do you wanna sing for DISCHARGE?” and I went, “Can I think about it?” and he goes, “Yeah,” and I went, “Yeah, okay.” [Laughter] Ten seconds I go, “Yeah, of course.” My original drummer Garry who left THE VARUKERS in 1982 joined DISCHARGE, so it’s like going full circle. Yeah, my original drummer from Protest And Survive when we formed the band, Garry Maloney, he played on the album Hear Nothing [See Nothing Say Nothing] and Never Again 7”. He left THE VARUKERS to join DISCHARGE. And years later I did the same. I’m still in THE VARUKERS, we’re still playing, we’re still recording.
Oh okay. Yeah, ‘cause I remember you guys played CBGBs, and I saw you when you were fronting DISCHARGE, what was that 2003?
Our first tour, that’s correct.
Would you guys come back to the U.S.?
We want to. We’re gonna have some problems with Rainy ‘cause he got deported. We came a couple times with a stand-in bass player. So when we played CB’s, it wasn’t Rainy. And then we came back from Gabba from CHAOS UK, he played bass. And we’ve been asked to come back but we wanna come back with Rainy on bass so we have the full line-up, you get the full impact. We’ve been trying to but we need work papers, so we need a good label or a good manager to get our work papers ‘cause he has deportation on his passport; that was years ago now, but I think it runs out next year. So we’re gonna try if we can, but we need proper work papers. We need someone behind us really to make it happen. We’re still hoping; we haven’t ruled it out. Hopefully next year maybe.
I don’t know if you talked to bands from other countries, is it as hard to get into the UK to tour or is it just here?
I don’t know. I think they’re clamping down here. A couple of people have had problems. I think it’s paranoia. They think everyone wants to do some damage, when all the bands wanna do is go over there and play. The world’s gone paranoid since 9/11.
Well, that’s what they wanted, right?
That’s what they wanted. It worked. The terrorists have already won because we got stopped more times than whatever and more hassle. It’s like, look at us, what do you think we’re gonna do?! We’ve been stopped quite a few times, so it’s not too much fun travelling anymore. We still do it and we still get through okay, but America is a hard one to crack. But we’re gonna keep trying till our dying breath.
Okay good. That [DISCHARGE] CB’s show was packed.
Yeah, it was good. And we were rubbish then. [Laughs] We’re 10 times better now.
That was when you first joined.
Those were my first gigs. I’ve been there for a while now, so I got better. [Laughs]
And also with these albums that are being re-released, a lot of the songs were newer, I know some songs are from old DISCHARGE records, but you writing lyrics…
Well, we did War Is Hell which is the re-recorded songs from over the years, that was just to get something going on the road for the American tour. And then we did Disensitise three years ago and that was our first real new one with our new drummer on it and me doing the vocals and writing the lyrics, which was good really because it put a lot of people’s back comments aside.
I was wondering about that, ‘cause obviously you had the “credentials” from THE VARUKERS. I know when you change vocalists a lot of people have negative comments.
I’d been around the world with THE VARUKERS but I had to prove [myself]─which I didn’t mind doing and I think I did that. I think eventually all the snide remarks and comments got less and less. Mostly people have a lot of faith in DISCHARGE and the fans are very dedicated so I had to prove to them even more maybe, but we did it which is a good feeling─that we succeeded, well I think so anyway.
Also when you were writing lyrics for the new material, I may be wrong, but what I got from THE VARUKERS like once you got into Led To The Slaughter and Another Religion, Another War, had more of a DISCHARGE feel.
Yeah, that’s why I got called up for the job because I’m the best person to do it apart from Kelvin, you know what I mean? I had that in me. It definitely was new ‘cause it was a different band, but I’d been into that sort of style for a long time, so that’s why Ian Glasper put name forward; he said Rat from THE VARUKERS. And nobody else was interested so I got it from day one.
And you didn’t have to change the way you wrote your lyrics?
When I write lyrics, ‘cause I still write for THE VARUKERS, I always know which band it’s going to be for. It’s the same as the guitar player [Bones], for BROKEN BONES or DISCHARGE, he’ll know when he writes it who it’s for. It’s a weird thing to say. But I think if I have 20 lyrics, I know where 18 are gonna be and maybe two will sit in the middle somewhere and I might choose THE VARUKERS or DISCHARGE. But the majority of it, I just know where it’s gonna go before I do it. I’ll have the music already ‘cause Bones will write the riffs and I’ll just put lyrics to that. Or sometimes I’ll write lyrics first and if Bones comes up with a good riff, I’ll go, “I’ve got lyrics for that.” And we just work on it, and if it works, it works.
So the ones that are a little more minimalist, you’d use for DISCHARGE, I know they had those heavy-hitting short lyrics.
I’m a little different. I do write a little more lyrics than Kelvin, but that’s my style. I’m not going to change. I do write too much sometimes and I think I can say what I need to say in less words, so I’ll change it a little bit. People say when I go onstage I go 100 percent either VARUKERS or DISCHARGE. There’s no 90 percent, it’s 100 percent. So when people see me with DISCHARGE, I seem more aggressive. I don’t know what that is, maybe it’s the music. I don’t know. THE VARUKERS are still aggressive, but maybe with DISCHARGE there’s still something I have to prove. A bit more pressure. I have to make sure it’s right. THE VARUKERS I can get away with ‘cause I started the band. [Laughs] But that’s good, the pressure. Nerves and adrenaline help the songs to drive. If I walked out complacent and not nervous, there’d be no point doing it, I’d have no adrenaline flowing.
Oh and I just want to have it correct, so it’s Bones, you…
Rainy on bass and Dave on drums, who was originally from BROKEN BONES. So we’re a family still, a big family circle. [Laughter] It’s like a family tree. Bones left DISCHARGE before BROKEN BONES, Garry and Dave joined from THE VARUKERS. Tezz formed BROKEN BONES. Bones came back to DISCHARGE, Tezz came back to DISCHARGE, and then Dave came to DISCHARGE.
You know D.O.A. from Vancouver? I love it, I have one record from them and they had a family tree drawn up from all the bands they had come from and all that. You guys should do that. [Laughs]
We’ll probably do that. Why not! ‘Cause we all know it, but there are quite a few people around the world that don’t know that. So if we did something like that, they’d go, “Oh shit, yeah!” “Bones left DISCHARGE to join…” you know what I mean? It would all be connected. Dave came in from THE VARUKERS, that’s weird it’s from the same band. It’d be quite interesting. Maybe we’ll do a compilation. I’ll speak to Candlelight and maybe do a family tree and put a poster with it, the family tree.
Have you guys been writing new material?
We have been. But because of the distance, they all live in Stoke on Trent, I live in Nottingham, and I also have another band now called THE VILE. So I’m doing three bands at the moment. We have a few new ideas down. We are working on new songs, yeah. Maybe next year we’ll do a new album. We wanted to get these two out and give them as much push as we could. If you take too much on, you don’t do as good of a job.
I always like to ask guys who’ve been in the punk scene for so long how you got into it initially.
I got into it ‘cause I saw the SEX PISTOLS on Top Of The Pops and I went, “That’s what I want to get into.” I never had a chance to see the PISTOLS live ‘cause I was too young. I was second generation. We left school in ’79 and we saw punk rockers around town, older ones, and we got into it, going to gigs. And we carried it on and now there are younger kids coming up that carry it on as well, which is good. They said punk would be dead in three years; it’s now 30-odd years and still going.
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