Interview mit Full Court Press

01.01.1998
 

 

1. introduce your band? who is fcp, where do you come from ...

FCP stands for Full Court Press, a Belgian band that tries to combine the best of all kinds of hardcore elements with hip-hop, metal and everything else that are our influences. We are a 5 piece band consisting of me (Koen) on vocals, Cas and Jochen on guitars (just added both new guitar players in December 2000), Christophe on bass and Kenny on drums.


2. how did fcp come together? when did you start doing fcp?


We just started out as a joke between friends. I had some friends and wanted to jam a bit since I hadn't made music in about 2 years or so after I got kicked out of my previous band. We started out somewhere in the summer of 1998. In the beginning it was all one big joke but one thing leads to another and now we are here in 2001.


3. you did one demo, a msplitcd and another split? what up next? when? what label?


The demo came out on Spill The Blood records and is sold out now. Then we released the split cd with Crawlspace on Gangstyle records which is still available, and now we have 4 songs on the STEP TO THE PLATE cd from Thornz Records that recently got released. We are writing songs now for a full length album that hopefully will be released in October 2001, again on Gangstyle records from Holland.


4.what is fcp about? what about your lyrics?


We're just all about having a good time on and off stage, having fun making and playing music and trying to entertain people. The lyrics are all about personal situations I encounter in my life or things I witness walking around here, and I just scream out my frustrations when I sing them. It's all very personal but they're not hard to understand and I hear from alot of people that they can relate to my lyrics. That's something I'm happy about, that people understand the lyrics and know where I come from.


5. what did you guyz bring into hardcore? what do you like/dislike about
hardcore? nowadayz and in the past?


I guess for myself I got into hc with bands such as Sick Of It All and very
old Biohazard when they started coming to Europe all the time. Before that I was more a metalhead, listening to Slayer and Megadeth. But the aggression and approach of bands such as SOIA made me realize this is what I wanted to hear and see. Being able to interact with the people on stage, not just look at them
like they are a bunch of rockstars. There are so many things i dislike in hc, but i'm not gonna start mentioning them all because they are the cliché things like backstabbing, people hating each other for no obvious reasons etc.. The things I like are definitely the shows, even though right now shows don't seem to be as packed as a few years ago, but I'm sure that will come back someday soon. I like being able to go to a show, see some good bands play, sometimes
dance, meet my friends and buy the music I like for a reasonable price.


6. what do you think about things like veganism or straight edge? is anyone in fcp straight and/or vegan?


I like them if people are doing it for themselves. I can't stand it when people tell me I have to live a certain way, you immediately lose my respect if you tell me I have to become sxe or something. But if you do it for yourself, you can talk to me about that, and I'll have the utmost respect for you. Hell, even my girlfriend is sxe and vegetarian, and I would never look down on her or anyone who's sxe for that matter. I think it's a healthy lifestyle and definitely good for your well being. In FCP the only sxe/vegetarian is our guitar player Jochen. None of us are vegan.


7. what bands do you like? favourite 5 hc-records and 5 favourite non hc
records?


There are just too many bands I like.. this is also a personal questions so I can't really answer for my bandmembers. So this little list is my personal one, and it's in no particular order (and I'm forgetting dozens of albums). As for hardcore I like both E-Town Concrete albums Time To Shine and The Second Coming, the Hatebreed cd Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire, the first 2 Fury Of Five albums No Reason To Smile and At War With The World and also the Bulldoze cd. God I forget too many great albums!! As for non-hc i really like alot of hiphop, and my top 5 would include the first Wu-Tang Clan album, all DMX albums but definitely the first one, the second Jay-Z album and also Eminem (marshall matters lp). And to surprise all of you, everyone should buy Jewel's album called Spirit, that cd is so amazing.. also anything from Tori Amos is cool.. this is not a fair question since I forget so many great musicians and bands..


8. tell us what you think about the scene here ... europe ... belgium/netherlands ... germany as far you know it ...


It's a little bit in a dump now if you ask me, not too many kids seem to be
interested in going to shows anymore. For instance we played with Born From
Pain and Stampin' Ground in Belgium last week for 40 people on a Sunday in a
pretty big city.. makes you wonder what everyone is doing these days. But I'm
sure it'll turn around again in a while, when some new exciting bands join the
scene they can add fuel to the fire again. I hope we are doing that too a bit by trying to always put up a good show. I think right now the scene in Holland is pretty good, more people come out and seem to come out for the music and not organize a fashion show all the time. I haven't been to Germany too many times but there always seemed to be quite some people at shows, and we haven't had one really bad show in Germany yet, so I'm pretty happy about that.


9. what do you guyz do besides of fcp? some stuff like distro, label etc?
what do you do for your living?


I used to do a zine called Dark Breed but quit that to devote all my time to
FCP. Now I write reviews and do interviews though for an online zine called My Own Way, you can find it at http://www.noizz.nl/mow

For the rest FCP is taking up all our time basically. 2 of us work in construction, one works for Ford, I work in a small company doing all kinds of work and Jochen is still in school since he's only 17.

1. introduce your band? who is fcp, where do you come from ...

FCP stands for Full Court Press, a Belgian band that tries to combine the best of all kinds of hardcore elements with hip-hop, metal and everything else that are our influences. We are a 5 piece band consisting of me (Koen) on vocals, Cas and Jochen on guitars (just added both new guitar players in December 2000), Christophe on bass and Kenny on drums.


2. how did fcp come together? when did you start doing fcp?


We just started out as a joke between friends. I had some friends and wanted to jam a bit since I hadn't made music in about 2 years or so after I got kicked out of my previous band. We started out somewhere in the summer of 1998. In the beginning it was all one big joke but one thing leads to another and now we are here in 2001.


3. you did one demo, a msplitcd and another split? what up next? when? what label?


The demo came out on Spill The Blood records and is sold out now. Then we released the split cd with Crawlspace on Gangstyle records which is still available, and now we have 4 songs on the STEP TO THE PLATE cd from Thornz Records that recently got released. We are writing songs now for a full length album that hopefully will be released in October 2001, again on Gangstyle records from Holland.


4.what is fcp about? what about your lyrics?


We're just all about having a good time on and off stage, having fun making and playing music and trying to entertain people. The lyrics are all about personal situations I encounter in my life or things I witness walking around here, and I just scream out my frustrations when I sing them. It's all very personal but they're not hard to understand and I hear from alot of people that they can relate to my lyrics. That's something I'm happy about, that people understand the lyrics and know where I come from.


5. what did you guyz bring into hardcore? what do you like/dislike about
hardcore? nowadayz and in the past?


I guess for myself I got into hc with bands such as Sick Of It All and very
old Biohazard when they started coming to Europe all the time. Before that I was more a metalhead, listening to Slayer and Megadeth. But the aggression and approach of bands such as SOIA made me realize this is what I wanted to hear and see. Being able to interact with the people on stage, not just look at them
like they are a bunch of rockstars. There are so many things i dislike in hc, but i'm not gonna start mentioning them all because they are the cliché things like backstabbing, people hating each other for no obvious reasons etc.. The things I like are definitely the shows, even though right now shows don't seem to be as packed as a few years ago, but I'm sure that will come back someday soon. I like being able to go to a show, see some good bands play, sometimes
dance, meet my friends and buy the music I like for a reasonable price.


6. what do you think about things like veganism or straight edge? is anyone in fcp straight and/or vegan?


I like them if people are doing it for themselves. I can't stand it when people tell me I have to live a certain way, you immediately lose my respect if you tell me I have to become sxe or something. But if you do it for yourself, you can talk to me about that, and I'll have the utmost respect for you. Hell, even my girlfriend is sxe and vegetarian, and I would never look down on her or anyone who's sxe for that matter. I think it's a healthy lifestyle and definitely good for your well being. In FCP the only sxe/vegetarian is our guitar player Jochen. None of us are vegan.


7. what bands do you like? favourite 5 hc-records and 5 favourite non hc
records?


There are just too many bands I like.. this is also a personal questions so I can't really answer for my bandmembers. So this little list is my personal one, and it's in no particular order (and I'm forgetting dozens of albums). As for hardcore I like both E-Town Concrete albums Time To Shine and The Second Coming, the Hatebreed cd Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire, the first 2 Fury Of Five albums No Reason To Smile and At War With The World and also the Bulldoze cd. God I forget too many great albums!! As for non-hc i really like alot of hiphop, and my top 5 would include the first Wu-Tang Clan album, all DMX albums but definitely the first one, the second Jay-Z album and also Eminem (marshall matters lp). And to surprise all of you, everyone should buy Jewel's album called Spirit, that cd is so amazing.. also anything from Tori Amos is cool.. this is not a fair question since I forget so many great musicians and bands..


8. tell us what you think about the scene here ... europe ... belgium/netherlands ... germany as far you know it ...


It's a little bit in a dump now if you ask me, not too many kids seem to be
interested in going to shows anymore. For instance we played with Born From
Pain and Stampin' Ground in Belgium last week for 40 people on a Sunday in a
pretty big city.. makes you wonder what everyone is doing these days. But I'm
sure it'll turn around again in a while, when some new exciting bands join the
scene they can add fuel to the fire again. I hope we are doing that too a bit by trying to always put up a good show. I think right now the scene in Holland is pretty good, more people come out and seem to come out for the music and not organize a fashion show all the time. I haven't been to Germany too many times but there always seemed to be quite some people at shows, and we haven't had one really bad show in Germany yet, so I'm pretty happy about that.


9. what do you guyz do besides of fcp? some stuff like distro, label etc?
what do you do for your living?


I used to do a zine called Dark Breed but quit that to devote all my time to
FCP. Now I write reviews and do interviews though for an online zine called My Own Way, you can find it at http://www.noizz.nl/mow

For the rest FCP is taking up all our time basically. 2 of us work in construction, one works for Ford, I work in a small company doing all kinds of work and Jochen is still in school since he's only 17.