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TX: Introduce yourselves. Dave: Dave Robinowitz, I play bass for Blindside. Don: I'm Don, I play drums. TX: Where are you guys from? Dave: Poughkeepsie, New York TX: How long have you guys been together? Dave: Officially... Don: A little over two years. TX: Could you describe your sound for someone who might not have heard you? Dave: Experimental Hardcore Don: Very experimental. TX: I'd hate to say it because I hate them, but I hear kind of a Korn undertone in there somewhere? Dave: Well there experimental hardcore. They're not hardcore, but they're experimenting with heavy sounds. Don: I would call it anything in the heavy genre. Any sort of style in the heavy genre, even if you wanted to call it metal, you could call it metal. Just experimental with a melodic type thing. Experimental vocals, guitar, bass Dave: Influenced a lot by funk. TX: So would you rather people not classify you as hardcore? Don: Whatever they want to categorize us as, it's heavy music. Dave: People got to identify it. TX: Have you guys been in any other notable bands? Dave: Yeah I was in a band called Wormdrive. This guy wants to sell us weed. TX: Oh really? A homely looking guy walks up to us. Dave: What's up big man? Homely guy: Hey man, I'm just lookin' for a cigarette. We continue with the interview and he goes away. Don: I was in a band called Christ Insane. TX: Oh you were in that band? Don: Yeah. TX: I remember Wormdrive too, I have a flyer collection and one of them has Wormdrive and Bonedog in Carmel. Don: Holy shit, that's old. Dave: That might have been before I got in the band. TX: What band would you most like to play with right now? Don: In all honesty, someone similar to us. I mean there's a lot of big tours...I would love to do an Ozzfest tour. That would be a really good tour because people are going there to see all different styles of music. And I think we need that kind of audience. Dave: Defiant Ones. TX: Do you guys have anything coming out? Dave: We're working on a CD now. TX: Are you with a label? Don: We're not really... Dave: We have interest. Don: Yeah we have label interest but we're not working with anyone and we're not definitely saying we'd come out on a label, we might even put it out ourselves. We're gonna do whatever is best for us, whatever benefits the band. TX: What labels were you talking to? Don: We don't really want to say just yet. TX: What's the best show you guys have played? Don: I think personally, my favorite show that we've played was a party with Overcast and Section 8 and Slipfist and Self Decay in New Paltz just because of the vibe. On a national basis it was with Machine Head here at the Chance. Dave: Mine was in the youth center in New Paltz as far as energy goes. For me that was fucking amazing. TX: Do you tend to like smaller shows, or do you go for bigger ones like here at the Chance? Dave: I definitely like smaller shows. Don: Yeah. I like playing the Chance for the sound purpose and the quality of people being in a room and being able to hear what we're doing with a really high definition of sound. It's got really good speakers, a really good sound system, so they can clearly hear what's going on. In a small room you get the energy and the closeness between the listener and the musician. Dave: Yeah and you're a lot more relaxed. You feel like you're really part of it. TX: Is there anything you guys really feel strongly about that reflects in your music like straight edge or vegan...? Dave: Nah, Everybody has got to stick for what they believe...and there's gonna be different cliques and stuff like that. We all have to realize the fact that, number one, we are all united in singing this music, number two, we're all united because we're all from the fuckin' same place. And so the main thing is that everybody's got to go for what they believe, but everybody's got to be big enough and fuckin' mature enough to unite and keep it that way. TX: Like an individuality through unity? Dave: Individuality is great, but you gotta keep it locked together. TX: What's up with you guys breaking up, why did you guys break up a while back? Don: There was a real big internal social problem that anyone goes through in life, with anything their involved with. It could be your job, it could be your girlfriend, it could be your parents. Dave: Yeah, it's not like we're just "some band", we're not just high school kids. A lot of us work crazy fuckin' jobs, so there's lots of crazy shit going through all our minds and stuff. It starts emotional conflicts. Don: And when you're looking at the big picture sometimes it's overwhelming when you already have a bass and you already know what you want to do but other people in the band might not want the same exact things as you. And that's where the conflict came in, where we didn't all want the same exact thing. Dave: You don't know what you got until it's gone. TX: Is that why you guys came back? Dave: Yeah. Don: We definitely saw a lot after we all came back together. TX: Does anything piss you off about shows? Dave: Fights. Don: Fights. Dave: Fights and people getting caught in a certain image and their afraid to just talk and express themselves. Hardcore shows are really about like, gaining inspiration. Kind of like how certain people go to temple or whatever.
Don: And I actually hate the whole, being a certain image on the kind of music you're playing. Kind of like,some people don't like certain bands because they're nottough enough, or some people don't like certain bands because they're not real enough or true to the scene. But they have to understand that bands come together because at first they're instrumentalists and they're expressing themselves. It's not to fit in with any certain kind of clique. They're expressing themselves and however they express themselves is their life and their style and they should just respect that. I hate those little gossiping rumours that come along with the scene and I think that everyone should just let everybody be themselves because there is individuality in this scene.
Dave: It's not about image. We gotta get out of here, get everybody to grow, make everybody grow and just get out of here, all the bands, we gotta put Poughkeepsie on the map. TX: Do your lyrics reflect this sort of thing or are they more personal? Don: Our lyrics are really like, true to life stories. Jason has written all the lyrics for the band he writes something that has to do with him himself or an immediate person around him, and our lyrics are really good for identification, personal problems and personal growth. TX: A lot of times at venues like these, people come out to see a headliner like Hatebreed, but don't check out the openers and local bands. Does that piss you off? Dave: Well, people don't have time. Maybe they don't have time for that, they got to eat or do their laundry or something. Don: I think it works both ways too, you know? I know people who come out just for the headliners and I know people who come out for just their friends in the opening bands and as soon as they're done, they're out. They really should watch the whole show, but sometimes it's hard man, to watch every band. Dave: My feeling is that it's music. Like when I saw your band tonight, I mean you guys definitely weren't Soulfly. You weren't a band that has all this amazing equipment and is signed and has been doing it for years and years and years and years. But I liked you guys Alot because you're young and it's... Donny: Raw energy. Dave: ...Raw energy and you just had something unique and you were really good. And it didn't matter that you weren't a "professional band", like I got off watching you. I like seeing new music. TX: What can we expect from you guys in the near future? Dave: CD's, better sound. Don: More dates and we'll always continue doing the artwork. Stickers, shirts. Dave: Books, maybe a zine... TX: A music kind of zine? Don: Just something with artwork. Dave: We have a lot of friends who are artists. And that's another thing, this scene is so full of art and we'd love to open that up. TX: Well that's about it, do you guys have any shout outs or anything. Dave: Shout out to all the bands in the area. Don: Just keep coming to shows.