5 years of dedication

On their latest release they have a song called '5 years of dedication', and this title sums it up, because dedication is what this band is all about. Five years ago I was there when they recorded their first demo. We helped them out with the backing vocals, and I even did some guestvocals for a song. It was all basic shit, recording it in someone's garage, without great material or the best sound quality, and even the songs might not have been the best ones ever. But which was very clear at that moment, was that this band was stoked about what they were doing, they loved it, they were there for a reason!
In the meantime some faces have changed in the band, they played hundreds of shows, they got dozens of people knocked out in the pit, released an EP, a split EP and 2 full lengths. And they did all this DIY, you still know what that means? They didn't took shit from anyone, didn't suck any dick, and took all the risk.
And now, everytime when I see these guys enter the stage, they're up there with the same dedication and passion as five years ago, and always, whether a crowd of 50 or 300 they're giving all the energy they have. Respect to who respect is due, and my boys in PTF definitely deserve a lot of it.
Here's a talk with my man Bert, vocalist of Pushed Too Far.

- Bert, since when is the band around? How and when did you start it?

Hey Wim, What's up? Ok here we go : In the summer of 2003 it all started, but not easy, no not easy at all! In the first place we were with 2 singers and we played something like metalcore. But actually nobody liked it, After a few months we were with 1 singer, 1 guitar player, a bass player and a drummer. In that line up we made 6 songs and we played our first gig in the summer of 2004. But Derwin never moved on like the rest of the band had in mind, so we kicked the guy out. And then there was Jef. Once Jef was in, everything was going very quickly. Recording our demo, doing a lot of shows, recording our mcd and our full cd. After we recorded our full cd we wanted more power on stage. Bart from Lost in Rhone joined us, but less than a year later he decides to quit and we find Nicho. There were plans for a new full cd, so we were writing new songs, 5 days before we hit the studio, Roel decides to quit PTF. So on the record Nicho has played the bass. After 2 weeks we found a replacement in Gert Ooms, the motherfucker rocks the bass like no one else! So right know we have a steady line up! Jefcb and Nicho on the guitars, Krisje behind the drums, Gert rocking the bass and me destroying the microphone.

- I guess things have changed quite a lot since the beginning?

Some things have changed; like the line up, new guitar and bassplayer. But the music is still the same, some people tell we have a new sound and stuff, but I can't really say it because we made the songs. So I don't hear the difference. To me it's old school with some moshparts you wanna kill a bitch on! The lyrics are a little more mature, but hey, I'm getting older you know. But some are the typical PTF lyrics. The cd we recorded at CCR studio in Zulte and it was mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music in America. We are pretty stoked about the quality and the cd! The artwork is done bij Serch. Cool shit! We like it a lot.

- Do you still remember how the demo recordings were?

Yeah man it was so much fun, everything sounded bad, but it was cool! I'll never forget that day in the garage. The singalongs were with so much violence, I like that. There was some kid, that was so stoked about our stuff that he almost moshed the garage away, hey that kid was you.

- You have released all your records yourself? Why have you done this?

Because it felt right. In the beginning we have sent out our demo, mcd and stuff to the labels, but only one out of 10 reacted. So we were sick of doing that and it felt good to do it yourself! It's not that easy to promote your record but we do our best! And with all the love for the music. Maybe someday some record label picks us up, you never know. But it's cool the way we do it now, and we can ask less for a cd!

- In the grapevine it was told GSR was interested in PTF, but that Rob really didn't want to work with you guys. What's the story with him?

No clue? Got no issues with that guy, he fixed us some shows and we know Theo appreciates our work. However, we're doing fine ourselves, but honestly GSR actually is a great label. But what can we say? We work hard and we'll get what we deserve, I guess.

- So you never had problems selling your stuff?

These days it's very hard to sell your shit, 16 year old kids don't understand that releasing a cd costs a lot of money, and they just copy or download those cd's. It's good that kids know the songs and stuff. But like i said, it's a lot of money and if everybody copies the cd's we cannot bring out cd's anymore in the future. But hell, it's all good!

- But I guess selling merch compensates this.

Yeah, the kids buy a lot of merch, and because of that we can break even. But we also keep the prices low, like 10 euro for shirt. We don't wanna sell out to the kids. Sometimes we sell no merch and 10 cd's sometimes we sell 40 t-shirts and no cd's! Its always different. But if they like our music they support us!

- You've done a lot of different designs. How many by now, which people have designed shirts for you?

We have done a shitload of designs because we want to have differend things because everybody has a different taste. I don't know how many but if you take everything we have 20 designs I think. Spoiler, Harai Tatoo, Lucky One tattoo, Famooze, Michiel artwork, ... and of course our own Jefcb. I like as good as all our designs, but especially the one Michiel did, we also have our backdrop with that design.

- PTF has not yet done a lot of touring. How was the previous tour. And do you plan new tours in the future? With which bands you'd like to tour?

It's not easy for a band like us to tour, because we do release everything on our own label and it's not a big label. So it's difficult to do tours. But for this summer normally something bigger is coming up! The previous one was with our buddies from Point Of View. The tour was sick, cool shows and cool hang outs. Our "tourmanager" was drunk everyday, he crashed at every show under a soccer table, he threw up blood. But it was because of the long distances, for every show we had to drive around 10 hours. We have learnt our lesson about that!

- You don't only release PTF stuff. So what's up with the label?

With Clenched Fist records we want to help begining bands, because it's not easy to print a cd without knowing how! Much shit with sabam, especially if you don't want to be a part of their game. And I think for the bands it's great if we can help them out because finding a label is not easy these days! This year you can expect our new full cd "Fools Never Move On" coming out on 22 march, Tear It Down MCD coming at you at 1 march and Johnny Unstopable coming on 11 april. It will kill all you niggas.

- Which bands do you see as an inspiration to PTF?

Our biggest inspiration is No Turning Back. What they do is so great! Man, they do it with some much love and strenght! But we have more bands we look up like Death Before Dishonor, Kickback,... But we want to have our own sound, something different than the rest. We hope it worked out well. Next to bands, anger, love, hate, pain, everyday bullshit, arrogance,... is also our inspiration!

- So which are your favourite bands to play with?

Every band that plays from the heart! And every band with a frontman that means what he says! Not a bullshit band that comes to play for 1000 euro, with the same songs like 5 years ago. And only do it for the money. Our a fucking American band, who on stage pretend to have invented the wheel and who is crying backstage how they want to go home!

-What would be your dream line up to play with?

I definitely wanna play with Stout and Homicidal. But every show is a dream for me! All the energy from all the bands and the crowd. I think I'm addicted.

- You've also done some covers. Which songs have you played so far? Why did you chose those songs?

We have played in the past 3 coversongs. We choose these songs because they fit our music. In the beginning we played Sick Of It All with Injustice System, great song with good lyrics and a fucking great vibe. Than we did Bulldoze with Our Way, another great song, with a fucking hard mosh part. The way we like old school beatdown! And the 3rd song we did was Kickback with Be My Guest. Very good lyrics and very heavy shit. Fucking in ya face style! Now we don't play cover songs anymore, maybe in the future? You don't know!

- Andries from TSU helped you writing a song for the new cd. How did you end up working with him together?
Man, it was so cool. He came in our rehearsal room and rocked his balls out, the same as in the recording room. He was rocking from beginning till the end. I just love this guy! We just had the idea to make a song once, and we just did it and it ended up very cool! And the song fits in our album:) Mayby we do another thing together in the future, you never know!

- Your shows are hard, and people get hurt from time to time, but to me it seems there's always a positive vibe. Do you think it is important to keep it positive?

Our shows are hard and that's the way it should be! We bring hardcore not some random pussyshit! But we always have a smile on our face. We sing about anger, hate and stuff but some time a joke is in the right place. And we do it that way because some people take our lyrics and stuff TOO serieus. They really believe if i say I'm gonna kill somebody, I'm actually gonna do it. And for that kind of people sometimes I do some sketchy ballade on stage of some kind of that! But I don't care about positive of negative, for me it's all hardcore. The 25 minutes on stage I release all my anger and hate that I have built up during the week! I always feel pretty good after a show, I feel free because I have done my thing you know?

- So what's been some of the craziest shit going on in the pit and on stage during your shows?
Everytime there is some thing else: broken noses, people knocked out, blood all over the place, chairs getting involved, the last time we played, there were a lot fights. And that is not cool, we like fucking hard dancing, but fighting with no reason is not cool! Sometimes it is necessary, but without a reason? It just sucks, then you can better fuck off! Last time we played 3 girls were stroking my knee, they were like fucking 14 years old. I still don't understand! That was also the show were 3 fight brokes out, 2 people got knocked out. It was weird I guess.

- Still a lot of people don't understand the dancing or the band in general. When you play a show with different kind of bands, you are sure to read some shit on PTF and your crowd on some messageboards the next day.
What do you think? Messageboards are the opposit of what we call hardcore, so we don't give a fuck. I tought hardcore was all about being a pain in the ass and saying fuck you to the latest fashionhype. As long as I feel we do that our own way, people can go all gay on Myspace as much as they like. And I'll live it in real life just like I always did. So, we do this shit for 5 years now and we still love it to be hated, and lately we're even loved for what we do. We try to bring you hardcore, grinding hard on the edge of the core.

- How was the release show?

It was a fucking blast man! More then 300 people paid at the door. Every band gave the best they got, and the kids seem to like our new songs. We have selled more cd's than we did with the Anger. Now we hope the kids know the new songs and go crazy on the new ones too! There was a lot of sing a long, mosh, dives, it was just crazy. We can't say how satisfied we are. We put many effort in the releae show and the new cd, and if you get a response like that, than it's worth all the work!

- You're finally playing the Ieperfest. It took a while before you could play there, what took you so long?

Ypresfest is a big fest, a group of people are doing hard work each and every year to get it going. But that also means, they all have to agree about the bands, and some of them can even say NO WAY to a band. There's some people outthere who where supporting us from the start, but God knows why somehow they turned against us. Dunno why, maybe they rather support their friends band and don't like it when we're getting more shows than those bands. But Bruno always helps us out and he is a good friend of PTF!

- PTF always has been a band some people talked shit about. How do you feel about this?

I really don't care, but if I say that I'm lying. Because you put all your effort in the band, all your energy, all your time, and always there are loosers that say this and that, about your band, but have never seen us. So I don't get the point why they talked shit, if you don't know, don't fucking judge. But if they have seen us and then talked shit, I don't fucking care. We do what feels right for us and what we like! But after five years, the people who always talked shit, seem to like us these days, and that's cool of course! But there are always stupid fucks who have no own opinion and just say what the group want. Like 2 years ago, some guy always moshed in front of us, always said cool things, now he is with a group and never checks us out anymore, talks shit and never says hi, haha, what a fucking loser!

- What does hardcore means to you? And what has attracted you to hardcore? What makes a band a hardcore band in your eyes?
It's my life, I'm lost without it I think. It has thaught me to think, that I can speak my own mind, that I must come up for myself, and not care about what others think of you,... The dedication of many people is wat attracted me the most, the passion and the love! In my eyes a hardcore band is a band that mean the things they say on stage. Do the music with all there love and passion and not sell out themselves!

- You got the OSB thing going. What's up with that? What's your opinion on crews in general?

Jef has started the OSB thing, so I give the question to jef, our guitarplayer: We started out OSB as a joke, just to see how long it takes before people put that in their nicknames, considering theirselves part of that "crew". Haha. It didn't took long, we had a laugh. Crews... never understood why 30 year old men get in front of a christmastree in a crew-shirt, to take some homie pictures to put them on Myspace. People also seem to like to come all alone to a show.. in a crew shirt.

- How do you see the future of the band?
Now we are going to start to promote our new cd. We have made new merch, posters, stickers and so on... To promote the new stuff. Hopefully kids pick it up and like the new record. We will do a tour in the summer, so that everybody gets to know our music. And we hope we can push our band to the next level. Of course we're gonna write some new songs etc.. But we're defenitlely heading towards the next level.

- You used to organise shows yourself. What's up with that now?

Pushed Too Far and the label ask so much time of me that I have no more time to do big shows, sometimes I organise shows like our cd release, but nothing big anymore It's too much work! I have done shows for bands like, Kickback, Do Or Die, Backfire, Justice, No Turning Back, Settle The Score, Morda and many many more.

- Any last words, shout outs?
Wim, thank you very much for letting me speak my mind. Don't be afraid about 'de kempen' check out bands like : Brickbat, Angelskin, Pushback, Trail Of Hope, Tear It Down, Homicide, POV, Johnny Unstopable,...

Also check http://www.myspace.com/pushedtoofar and http://www.myspace.com/clenchedfistrecords. Buy cd's don't download! (only if it is a band with a lot of money) Buy zines, shirts, suport your local bands! Mosh hard don't be a winer. And last but not least FEET FIRST IS THE LAW! Thank you