Roger : It’s really good! We played well last night...

Mike : Got drunk!

Roger : Yeah! Got drunk! (laugh)

Mike : We had fun, it was a good show

Roger : It was a good show, we played well. We just kept playing, which is good because, I haven’t played with these guys since December...

Mike : Yeah, and that was only 6 days, or 5 days

Roger : So we never practised, just showed up and played . It was good.

What were you doing during the 6 months?

Roger : I was in my other band, The Disasters, touring. I was in Europe, and America.

Mike : We were just working on new material for the new record also

Do you play something from the new record?

Mike : Nothing new yet. It’s just music so far, no lyrics. Even though Miret will probably never know the lyrics anyway! (laugh)

You just released “Live at CBGB”, Is there something special you wanted to share with this live disk?

Roger : Well, besides that we wanted to, well the way that originally happened was just going to be a recording of a show to put in our documentary , which we’re still working on a complete documentary for agnostic front, but the show was so great ; it was such a great time, that we decided to put that out separately. Then we included a 20 minute short documentary of us just being us. People get to meet us, you know, this is agnostic front, this is mike gallo, this is me, stigma, whatever; and it was funny, entertaining . And it came across that way. So the live DVD is just a little hold-off to our new record.

Mike : I gave away 1000 cans of beer that day! (Laugh)

This place seems to be very important to you, as you released 3 live albums there...

Mike : All their...

Roger : I know, well why not? You know, CBGB’s is pretty much the birthplace of punk, birthplace of hardcore, why not their? You know? It’s a great place to see agnostic front, and they have a recording studio down stairs, so boom, everything gets recorded downstairs, and your done.

We heard that at the beginning the guy that opened CBGB’s didn’t like metal and hardcore, it was a place for Blues...

Roger : Blues, and Country blues, and yeah. But you know, he was doing that in New York City where still that was out of the ordinary you know? Back then when he opened CBGB’s it was more of a rock, traditional rock stuff and he wanted to do something a little different. Which is cool, and he accepted music of all kinds. It was never “you have to be blues, or country”, he just wanted music, different music, alternative music, and that’s where punk came from.

I heard that it might move to the West Coast, at Los Angeles?

Roger : Naw, that’s just talk your hearing. It’s going to close. I asked to play the last matinee their, to see if they’ll do it. Their last matinee with agnostic front. Record that live too!

Mike : Yeah! Why not right, play a fourth one! Agnostic Front live at CB’s again!

Agnostic Front has been around for more than 20 years now, so you have seen the evolution of the hardcore scene. Which band do you think is the most representative of the state of mind of a hardcore band?

Roger : I think we are. I mean, we believe in this, and we believe in our lyrics, and our life, and everything. I mean, that’s why we’ve stood the test of time, people believe us, and we believe them. The people see the admiration we have for our scene. There aren’t many bands that have done that. I mean bands like Agnostic Front, or Murphy’s law for instance. And then comes Sick Of It All, and of course Madball.

Mike : Those are the bands that are still doing it today

Roger : Yeah, still doing it today, stay holding the test of time you know? You gotta give respect for that.

And you are promoting some new bands like, I think your on tour with First Blood?

Roger : Yeah, well, they’re a good band. We always promote new bands, we bring bands on tour with us all the time

Mike : We gotta keep the new bands coming, to keep the scene alive you know?

Roger : Yeah exactly

We heard some bad stuff about Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed. People say bad stuff about him...

Mike : Why would they say bad stuff? Jamey gives so much back to the scene, weather its metal, hardcore, punk, oi, or whatever, anything underground, that guy does nothing but good

Roger : There’s always someone going to say something about somebody. You can’t make everybody happy. So here’s what I do, my theory; I only give my time, my dedication, and my work to the people who want to accept it and to the people who like what im doing. Im not getting paid any dues to any ignorance or anything like that. You don’t like me to begin with! So im not going to make you like me, so I got nothing to talk with you about. And Jamey’s going through the same thing, as the more popular you get in your career, there’s going to be more haters. But he’s a great person. He gives back. Just like Mike said, he gives back.

Would you work with him again on the next record?

Roger : I would love to do the next record with him again. I really, would, It was completely fun. And most likely if he could do it, he’ll work with us.

Do you have plans for the recording the new material?

Roger : The material from what I hear is almost complete, so I would like to get it into the preproduction mode, like record everything, and give it to whoever is going to produce it, hopefully Jamey so we can mess around with arrangements a little bit. And I would like to record this record by the end of this year.

After playing the songs from “Another Voice” live, what do you think about these songs today?

Roger : I love them. Majority of our set is another voice . We’re doing a lot of other stuff, a lot of heavier stuff. I think though, “Another Voice” is a fantastic album, I think we do every song on the record, except for two live right?

Mike : Yeah!

Roger, you work with Jamey too, on his Icepick record...

Roger : Yeah. That was crazy. Jamey’s nuts. I did that at Disasters show, at the Knitting Factory (NYC), he brought the whole recording equipment, he’s crazy. It’s good to work with other people, you know? A mix of all types of people. It’s good, it’s fun. To me I look at it like we’re all collaborating it into something really cool

Mike : Especially, we had fun with it. You know what I mean? We’re all friends together. People that he’s liked and influenced.

Roger : Yeah, I just did that with the new Disasters album. I brought in three guests, and I thought that was fun. I would like to do that with the new Agnostic Front. Well, I guess we did, we had Jamey Jasta, we had Scott from Terror, we had Karl from Earth Crisis. That was perfect.

Roger : Ouais, je viens juste de faire ça avec le nouvel album de Disasters. J’ai apporté 3 guests, j’ai pensé que ça serait fun. J’aimerai le faire avec le nouveau Agnostic Front. Enfin je pense que nous l’avons fait auparavant vu que l’on avait Jamey, il y avait Scott de Terror et Karl de Earth Crisis ?

After playing Hardcore for 20 years, do you still have some goals?

Roger : We live every day on a day-to-day basis on whatever happens, I mean we have many goals; this is a goal, being here in France you know

Mike : Our next record is a goal...

Roger : Playing this fest is a goal you know? Yeah our next record is goal...

Mike : To keep playing as long as possible is a goal

Roger : Our real full length documentary. And as long as there’s a demand for Agnostic Front, Agnostic Front will be here. We’ve ridden the waves, ups and downs, but we’re still here.

Mike : There’s so many songs we play I forget them on stage all the time. Last night we played “Night of Blood”, I mean, how many years has it been since we played that song, I forget how to play it! It’s the first time we played together in a long time though

You certainly knew Sob (Merauder) very well. Do you have something funny that maybe you remember that happened with him?

Mike : There’s a lot of funny stories with him..

Roger : But you know what, lets just let him rest in piece, you know it’s the best thing to do. There’s a lot, he’s a good person, he went through some shit...

Interview Manu & O.S
Translation Tim Maxwell