Originally published in ‘zine issue #37, 2006
Observations and Confessions on Politics from Across the International Extreme Music Landscape
Disposable Underground ‘zine’s first issue appeared in the fall of 1991, and from the beginning, musicians and other personalities in the music business have been talking politics in these pages, whether it pertains to their band or their community or their country or the world.
Many people don’t like to see music and politics mixed, but just as many people are inspired by the two together, or at the least have an interest in what the bands they look up to have to say about the state of the world.
Some of the bands that appear in this issue don’t raise political topics in their lyrics while others do. A band that covers political subject matter in its lyrics isn’t necessarily a political band or active politically. The comments these artists make don’t necessarily reflect the views of their band as a whole.
Most of the subject mater herein is quite dated, but it’s interesting to note how the concerns expressed are just as relevant in today’s world as they were at the time they were spoken. On another level, reading these conversations could be like a trip down memory lane, to various periods that were just as fucked up and strife ridden as this one is now.
What I’ve done is I’ve gone through all of the back issues of Disposable Underground and excerpted any interview content that had to do with politics of any subject and collected these excerpts here. I conducted these interviews in person, over the phone, through the mail, or via the internet from 1990 to 2005, with the exception of The Haunted’s interview, which is a new piece appearing here for the first time. Additionally, as opposed to the rest of this issue’s content, the Nekhei Naatza interview and the Napalm Death interview from 2005 are here in their entirety.
This issue is organized by year in which each interview took place and then alphabetized by band name. I’ve included the country of origin of each band to help demonstrate further from which each speaker’s perspective comes, to the extent that geographic location influences people’s opinions.
R. Mason conducted the interviews with Dead Body Love, Exit-13, Monstrosity, and Resist, while Vaughn Currier conducted the Snapcase and Unbroken interviews. Taryn Wilkinson contributed to the 2005 Napalm Death interview. ■
Read a PDF of these interview excerpts from issue #37 at the D.U. archive.
