Can make a little presentation of Rag Men and the members composed it?

Mitts: Rag Men is you have Jorge from Merauder, me Mitts form Madball, you got Rigg plays for Madball, used to play for Hatebreed and you have Ian bulldog who used to play bass for earth-crisis. We've been together for a year now, two years.

How Rag Men birth arrive? The metting of the members?

Rigg: Basicly Mitts and I have known each other for a while, and he asked me to play like years ago, like 3 or 4 years ago and talking about starting a band. We wanted to get together and play. And about a year and az half ago we started getting together aznd finding that we want to do it, and then that was it. We started writing riffs, just riff after riff after riff.

Mitts: It was originally gonna like a side project because I was in Skarhead and everybody was in other band and I always talk to Rigg and I had talk to Jorge that we should do a band sometime. It was just a side project but then we got the band together, Skarhead broke up, and it kind of become a real thing. And then we got Madball back together, but now we still do the both bands. It's become more than a side project.

Rigg: It kind of worked out perfectly cause me and Mitts played in Madball together and Freddy and Hoya also got their thing together. So we definatly gonna have time and get going.

We only listend the song "My Word" on your website, we find it's a good compromise between old and new school hardcore, how you define your music?

Mitts: We just finished the record. It's gonna coming in December in Gangstyle it's just called Rag Men. The songs are like that, there's a little bit of metal, a little bit of hardcore, but I think that the metal influence is old metal. Not like metalcore but more like Iron-Maiden and Black-Sabbath, this metal mixed in with hardcore.

Rigg: And with Jorge on vocals, in was kind of like planed like that. Mitts knew what he was gonna write. It's kind of his baby. He knew what kinds of riffs he wanted, but we needed Jorge to put it together. Mitts didn't had anybody else in mind, it was Jorge or nothing.

Mitts: Yeah, he was the only I ever wanted to sing for this band.

Rigg: So it was planed, this was what it gotta be. So Mitts got it all tied together to get the hardcore and the metal. But there are other songs.

Mitts: The songs on the record are really different. Some are in hardcore, some are in metal, some are almost like rock really, but whatever. But to me, the sound of the band is always the same. It's heavy. We've got Jorge singing, he's got the voice that no matter what we are going to play, we can do different styles but always still sound like that one sound.

All the members of Rag Men come from differents hardcore bands, Merauder, Skarhead, Madball, Earth Crisis, Hatebreed, whish have the most influence on your music?

Mitts: Definatly, and this is great. The reason I got those guys to play together, is we all come from bands that have toured and recorded many many times so everybody has the same level of experience. I show them sometimes and it just works. Like I show the songs to Jorge and he sings over them, he knows exactlly what to sing. Everybody's experience benefits the band.

You play in Madball to, is it difficult to be in two bands at the same time?

Mitts: No, like Rigg said before, Hoya and Freddy are in a side project. And Rag Men and Madball are managed by the same management called Stone City Music. So when Freddy and Hoya will be doing their stuff, we know that Madball won't so we'll be doing Rag Men. So we don't have to worry not knowing what the other guys are going to do because we know when there is going to be breaks with Madball so we have time to do Rag Men.

Rigg: It's easy, it's not nerve-raking because we know exactlly when to do each band. It's nice, it's really convenient. It's the best situation to have two bands. It's everything you kind ask for, there is no confusion. So there no miss-communication at all.

What sens could you give in the act of playing hardcore music in 2003 ?
Political implication ? Musical sens ? Social sens ? Economique Sens?

Mitts: There is very little politics, most of the lyrics are personnel issue. When the album'll come out you'll see the lyrics most of them are about self-experience and where we're at. We are all about the same age group, we are not really young anymore so we wright more lyrics about where we are going with our lives and it's very personnel, no politics really.

Do you know the european scene? What do you think about the rise of new hardcore bands ?

Rigg: It's great you know, anything as long as it's still going. I tend to stay away from that,I have a very short mind when it comes to music. I have very short collection of cd, just about 20. That's about it so I can't really say. But hey, bands are playing and they do what they wanna do so that's great.

Mitts: Yes there are a lot of new bands. But you know, the older I get, the less hardcore I listen to. Because to me, to listen to hardcore and play it is bad. We all tried to listen to different kinds of music like rock, pop and hip hop and stuff like that. But what I play is always gonna be hardcore, I can only play metal and hardcore, no matter what I play that's what it's gonna come out. So when I listen to other kinds of music then you have better influences. Madball for instance, soi much of Madball sounds like the beats are all hip hop beats but played by a hardcore band.

So now, what kind of music do you listen to ?

Mitts: I listen to everything, rock, pop.

Rigg: I opened his cd player and found Dido !

Mitts: Yeah I like Dido, I like a lot of punk stuff, that would make people lough, they would'nt believe, little Good Charlotte, New Found Glory…

No Use For A Name, Lagwagon ?

Mitts: Yes they're great !!

Rigg: I listen to like the Police, Billy Joel, everything like all classic rock

If you 've something to say at the young generation ?

Mitts: To fans or musicians ? Well I don't know. Eh to musicians, just play what you wanna play, let's do it. If you have an idea, you know play what's inside of you. A lot of bands I think try to classify what they wanna do before they even play.

Rigg: Yeah based on what they hear or on what's popular, oh yeah let's try to sound like this. But just play what you feel, but nothing happened afetr a night, I took all of use a long time to get here. It depends on what you want, on how hard you want to work for. That's up to you.

To Conclude : Your last word ?

Mitts: Just that the record comes out in Decmeber on Gangstyle records, it's call Rag Men. And in 2004 we are going to come on tour in Europe in March. It's a real band, it's not a side project, we're here to stay.

Rigg: If your not seeing Madball, you're gonna see Rag Men.

Mitts: Yeah we are going to be here somehow. So that's it.

Interview Manu & O.S.
Translation Tataye

Rag Men :
Jorge Rosado-vocals (Merauder)
Mitts-guitar (Skarhead-Madball)
Ian "Bulldog"bass Edwards (ex-Earth Crisis)
Rigg Ross-drums (ex-Hatebreed-Madball)