du jemals das Gefühl, dass du einen Teil des Zorns verloren hast, den du mit 18 gefühlt hast? Ist es schwieriger, ehrliche, harte Musik zu schreiben?
Natürlich ist es nicht mehr dasselbe, aber der Ärger kommt immer noch heraus und die Zeiten haben sich nicht wirklich geändert. Menschen haben sich seit Anbeginn der Zeit gegenseitig getötet. Wir sind jetzt nur konditioniert, das zu kontrollieren.
Aber das kannst du vergessen, denn meiner Meinung nach ist der Zustand der Welt schlechter als je zuvor. Es gibt den Aufstieg des rechten Flügels, der Faschismus kommt mit aller Gewalt zurück. Wir haben seit den 1960er Jahren große Fortschritte in der Bürgerrechtsbewegung erzielt. Wir haben jetzt eine Homo-Ehe, viele Rechte, aber in letzter Zeit scheint es, als würden wir uns zurückbilden.
Hast du Angst, dass der Brexit es dir schwerer machen wird, auf Tour zu gehen?
Ja, es wird die Dinge definitiv schwieriger machen. Möglicherweise müssen wir wieder Visa beantragen. Ich verstehe nicht, warum die Leute das wollten. Ich möchte niemanden als dumm bezeichnen, aber das war eine dumme Entscheidung.
Hörst du immer noch viel neue Musik?
Ja, das tue ich. Die meiste Zeit meines Lebens war es nichts als Punk. Jetzt, da ich älter werde, höre ich im Grunde alles, wenn es nur gut und echt ist.
Habt ihr ein spezielles Studio, in dem ihr eure Alben aufnehmt?
Das letzte Album, das wir aufgenommen haben, wurde von allen als richtig großartig gelobt. Die Leute sagten, es sei der Sound von Discharge, aufgenommen mit moderner Technologie. Die Wahrheit ist, dass es in einem kleinen Studio mit Bändern aus den 70ern aufgenommen wurde. Aber manchmal läuft es einfach.
Was war die schlimmste Erfahrung auf Tour überhaupt?
Das war, als man mich wegen meiner Vorstrafen nicht nach Kanada lassen wollte.
Und die beste Erfahrung?
Das war erst vor ein paar Wochen, als wir mit Max und Igor Cavalera von Sepultura auf die Bühne gingen, um einige Discharge-Songs zu spielen. Das war sehr cool.
Hast du einen Backup-Plan, falls sich die Band nächste Woche trennen würde?
Ja, eine neue Band gründen. Für mich gibt es kein Zurück. Ich habe gerade einen Job, ich arbeite zwei Tage die Woche. Aber das könnte ich nicht hauptberuflich machen. Mein Pensionsplan ist es, eine verdammte Hütte im Wald zu bauen und dort zu leben.
How many shows a year do you play?
I would say averagely about fifty. We’re not a big touring band, but we try to play as many shows as possible.
So, you still have day jobs?
I have, I work two days a week. Luckily, I get to pick my hours, which makes it very easy. If I need to work, I can work, but I don’t have to work. I keep the job as a back-up. Being in a band is not consistent. There are months when we are very busy, but other times we might not play one show for a month and for that I need the job.
So, of course you’re able to make a profit from the band?
If we played regularly, it would be enough to live by. But it would not be a luxurious lifestyle. But on the other hand, it‘s too much to play in the band and do a full-time job. So you have to compromise.
Do you still do full tours throughout the week or is it mostly on the weekend?
We try to do one whole tour each year, where we play every day, for example if we fly to another place like Finland or the Netherlands, but apart from that it’s mostly the weekend. Some weekends it’s only one gig. That’s another thing. We get up early to catch our flight and mostly we’re at the venue super early. But we’re playing at eleven o’clock. That means you have a lot of time to kill, but you can’t find any peace because there’s always something happening. And after we played, it’s round twelve and when we’re finished chatting to the people and having a few beers it’s at least two. Our flight back leaves early in the morning as well and you have to be at the airport two hours in advance, so you got very little time to sleep. So sometimes if you do these one off shows it’s actually harder than touring for a whole weekend, because then you have at least some time to relax a bit.
What do you do, when you have spare time on the road?
I always bring books with me but I never get to read them.
But what about the so-called rock’n’roll lifestyle?
You can do that when you’re a big band and making enough money to drive around in a fucking big tour bus and got everything taken care of. But that’s not us, we still do all the work ourselves.
But you are one the of the most influential punk bands of all time?
Yes, we may be famous, but we are definitely not rich and famous.
Does that bother you? There’s almost no punk or metal band out there that doesn’t name you as one of their influences and some of them are really making it big and playing the big venues?
No, we still have our integrity. We play the songs we wanna play without any ulterior motive. If we’d be in it for the money we should have quit years ago. The band is now 40 years old. This is just what we do.
You released your last record on Nuclear Blast, which is one of the biggest names in Germany, doesn’t that help in selling albums?
We’ve put stuff out on DIY labels as well, like the second to last album the band made, but they didn‘t have the funds to promote it properly. Nuclear Blast has let everybody know that we have a new album out, that was great. That is a big advantage, but the music industry has changed and the labels nowadays aren’t making enough money to also pay the bands. We have to make our money on the road.
How do you do that? Is it the fee you get from the promoters or is it the merch?
That depends on the country you are in. In some of them you don’t sell any merch, in others it is a lot. But we mostly know beforehand from experience where we’ll sell a lot of stuff and where we won’t. Sometimes we make special T-Shirts for gigs, that makes it a bit more personal.
Which are the most appreciative audiences?
For us it’s mostly Eastern Europe, like the Czech Republic. They really fucking go for it over there. Not so many bands come over there, so they make the best of every show. Crowd-wise there are even large differences within the UK. When we play in London, the crowd is really good, a lot of young people come, but it seems the further north we go it’s just a lot of old punkrockers coming to relive their youth. It’s not a very active crowd.
Are there countries you still want to visit?
Yes, we really want to go to Australia, but so far it hasn’t worked out. We haven’t had a decent offer. Discharge has played a lot of countries all over the world, but that one is still missing.
I heard from a lot of bands that they get treated much better in mainland Europe than in England. Is that the same for a band like Discharge?
We experience the same thing. In England you don’t get treated very well. In Europe on the other hand, the promoters take care of the bands, they feed the bands and they make you feel welcome. It’s much more professional than in England. There they just want you to play, get paid and get the fuck out.
Is there a place you don’t want to play anymore?
Probably the USA, because the last times we have been to the USA we always got ripped off by the promoters. But besides that, it’s too hard to get into the States. Rainy and Tezz can’t get in anyway, so we would have to go and have people fill in for them. But even if they could get in, we would probably get ripped off again. That’s a shame because we have our biggest fan base in the US, Central America and South America.
But you could go there?
Yes,