Photo: R. ScheuermanHow did you get into punk hardcore? What was the deciding factor?
Alex: Maybe in the 6th grade, my parents got me a copy of Metallica’s Kill Em All and than after that I kind of figured out about punk and stuff on my own, just finding out other bands and stuff. I guess in 8th grade, that was when Napster and all that stuff was really big, we were all about downloading MP3s and finding new and weird shit. That was when I found out about the Misfits and that’s kind of how it all started.
So an important question..is Kill Em All the best Metallica record?
Absolutely not. Ride the Lightening is the best Metallica record. One hundred and ten percent.
So let’s talk about War Hungry. You guys are definitely different than any other band in hardcore right now. Where do your personal influences come from?
I’ve kind of just been, and you can ask Kevin this, I’m probably just in the band to have long hair and look cool. I would like to think that we’re trying to go in a different direction because we feel like everything sounds the same nowadays. Kevin and I have a lot of similar musical interests so we’re trying to put a lot of those into our stuff. Anything from Alice in Chains to White Zombie, just weird stuff like that…stuff you don’t usually hear in hardcore today.
If you could personally pick a show to play with any band ever, dead members aside, who would it be?
I don’t know if I could speak for the band. But personally I’d want to play with Metallica, but right after Master of Puppets before Cliff died. (RIP) Definitely Pantera circa Vulgar Displays of Power. Definitely the Misfits because they were the first punk band I was ever into. I would also love to play, even though I’ve seen an incarnation of them, with the Cro-Mags because they are amazing, probably one of the most important bands as far this is concerned. Although I don’t even really listen to hardcore.
What current hardcore bands do you like?
I think Violation is the best hardcore band out right now. They kind of get it in the sense that they are doing something similar to what we’re trying to accomplish in that every band out there, they don’t have to sound like Age of Quarrel, you can do something different. When you talk to Gary and Chris and those dudes they’re into so much different shit, and you can tell they love Slayer and stuff like that. And it really comes through in their music and that’s important to make it an eclectic mix of different things. I love seeing that band live, I think they’re great.
What about your last tour with Let Down and Swamp Thing? What were some highlights of that tour?
Well, the shows were interesting. We had a good time in the sense that War Hungry hasn’t been out with a serious line up in a long time and I think that if you talk to Kevin and Hoodrack they were really happy with that, that they actually have a real band for the first time in a long time. And we al get along really well, it meshed well. Playing with Let Down is always interesting, so that was kind of cool.
Did you think you guys got a good reaction?
Some of the shows were weird. There were places that we never played before so that was different. That was also my first tour out of the east coast with the band, so it’s kind of hard for me to gauge. I thought Sound and Fury we did really great, I thought that we got a cool reaction there and so did every other band, it was kind of hard for kids to not go crazy. The shows we played afterwards were great too, we played a bunch of dates in California with Violation. Kids in California love that band and go crazy for them so it was really fun to see that.
What’s your favorite show that you’ve been to so far this year?
Favorite show that I’ve been to so far this year was without a doubt Iron Maiden. That’s not really a show though that’s more of an experience.
Would you like to share a experience from the show?
My friend Greg Daly, shout out to him and the World Inferno society crew, Greg drives them around and he’s a good buddy of mine and we work together at the church. He has this little invention during the summertime called Greg’s hard lemonade which is Simply Lemonade and Jameson. And when you drink a lot of those in the parking lot before the Iron Maiden show you get really, really drunk. And than you go to the Iron Maiden show and you throw up everywhere and black out. And than you go to the Iron Maiden show and get carted out by security to the health tent where you proceed to wake up from the blackout and say “Where the fuck am I??”. And than a dude asks you if you’ve been drinking and you go “Yeeaah I’ve been drinking.” And than Iron Maiden starts to play “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and you somehow stumble back to your seat and enjoy the rest of the show.
What about your first hardcore show?
What I remember about my younger years was seeing Blacklisted in its original form and being completely blown away by the kind of thing that they were doing at the time. And they were compared to, at that point in time, American Nightmare and all that shit and I was just like “Yeah, its not really like that at all”. Especially now, knowing those dudes pretty well, and hanging out with them and playing shows with them and seeing what they’ve turned into, its kind of amazing.
One of the things that I think are similar with Blacklisted and War Hungry is that you guys both don’t take all of your interests from just one genre. How do you feel about that?
Yeah I think that’s really important because if you do that, shit just starts to sound the same all the time. I mean, you can’t play the same breakdowns all the time. You gotta go somewhere else. I think that Blacklisted is one of those bands, they have a solid line up now and they know what they want to do and they’re doing it really well and its obviously showing because they’re playing huge shows and going overseas and doing huge stuff.
So what five records would you like to be buried with?
Metallica, it wouldn’t even matter. As long as one of those records were in my grave I’d be fine. I’m really into death metal so I would have to have a couple of those records in there with me. I would definitely have to have Death-Scream Bloody Gore and Sleep’s Holy Mountain, not that its death metal. That’s one of my favorite records ever, I listen to it all the time as much as I can. I would definitely have to have Misfits-Static Age cause I love that early raw sound, that stuff is great.
What do you foresee in the future for War Hungry? And what about the current lineup?
Right now its me Mook, Hoodrack, and Alex (Russin) has been playing with us a lot and Ian which is cool. I think he’s in the band now, from what I’ve heard. It’s a good line up, I like it a lot. I think we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, play some shows here and there just to see our friends, hang out, and play with some cool bands. We got some shows coming up at the end of October with Trash Talk, Bracewar, and Alpha and Omega so those should be a lot of fun. As far as that’s concerned just look out in 2009 because we’re having a new record come out. Actually it’s our first LP and I think that should be a pretty exciting time for us. We’re looking forward to getting that done, finally.
Any final shoutouts?
Shout out to De, my new roommate Nick Woj, all those other WB dudes that I don’t get to see very often. And also shout out to Paint it Black. I hope they get home from Europe safe. Also, if you see me at the Church say what’s up, we’ll talk for a minute.
myspace.com/whwb
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