1) Introduce please yourselves. Tell us about your age, hobbies, jobs, family status etc. :-) When the band KELTOi! was established (which year) and what was the main reason for start a band?

We started in Vigo (Galiza) back in 1995 and played our first gig one year later. The reason to create Keltoi! is very simple, we all loved oi! and street punk and there was almost no bands playing oi! in Galiza. So we did it ourselves. Keltoi! in 2014 are : Dani (38. Original bass player), he works in signing workshop and he has three kids, Manu (36. Drummer) works for the automotive industry and has two kids, Gontxu (36. Guitar player) also works in a factory for the automotive industry and has recently had a beautiful daughter, Mikele (46. Original guitar player) is currently unemployed but used to work as sound technician and owed his own recording studio called “Sonoroterapia”. Sime (40) is our singer and works in the export department of a company in the fishing industry. Like Mikele, Sime has no kids and it´s the only single in the band.

We share the same hobbies as most of you readers. Going out with our mates, being with the family, supporting our local football team (Celta Vigo), drinking nice beers and listening the best musics ever made (street punk, skinhead reggae, hard core, Celtic music….). Although lots of people in Galiza think we are all mad about football, a couple of us don´t give a shit about football. The rest strongly support Celta Vigo althouth we all agree that modern football is crap, business, bullshit….

2) Do you remember on your the first gig? With which bands have you every played? Which band from Spain, Catalunya, Basque or Galiza is the most popular for you? (What can you tell me about bands like Nucleo Terco, Kaos Urbano, Non Servium, Disturbio 77, Mossin Nagant, Ruin Bois, Eina or Opcio K-95 ?)

We played our first gig back in 1996 in a party to support Galician national language. Since then till now we have played only around 65 times. Most of them at home in Galiza and in the Basque Country (like a second home for us). We have played with bands such us Cock Sparrer, Dropkick Murphys, Real Mckenzies, The Adicts, The Boys, Perkele, Iskanbila, Skacha, Oi! The Arrase, Opicó K-95, Eina, Kaos Urbano…

It´s very difficult to say the bands we prefer as each of us has different favorite bands. Nowadays there are good bands such as Never Surrender or Arkada Social in the Basque Country, Skarmento in Galiza, Knock Out in Madrid, Crim in Catalonia….

With reference to that list of bands, we know most of them because we have shared stage (except Mossin Nagant, Nucleo Terco or Non Servium because we never had the chance to meet them). With Disturbio we share our drummer and Eina and Opció are good friends of us.

Regarding Ruin Bois. We are from the same city and we used to be friends. But time passed by and we realised we were totally different. We didn´t share the same view of the skinhead scene. For Keltoi! nazis and fascist are scum….not “a part of our scene” as they once claimed. That´s all. We would never say Ruin Bois were nazis, bacause we personally knew them and they were not. But they behaved like idiots and that was their end.

 3) I think you have recorded debut CD Casco Vello and 2nd CD A nosa cinza like digipack. Do you have any other EP or the other split CD or demo? Are you writing new songs now? Where could we listen to your new stuff?  

Apart from CD´s Casco Vello and A Nosa Cinza we have participated in several compilations, some of them to support the cause of Galician political prisioners “Oito anos secuestrados”, some to promote our national language and some others just to support the skinhead scene “Oi! é um grito de Uniao!” or Ten Years of oi!”.

4) KELTOI! is very interesting name for the streetpunk band. My roots are maybe celtic too because Bohemia (part of the Czech republic) was established by some celtic tribes in the middleage too. Do you sing about the celtic heritage?  Are you proud of to have any celtic ancestors ?

We are very proud of our Galician nationality and Galiza is one of the seven Celtic nations. That´s it. We don´t like to go far away from this. For us the term Celtic is something more cultural than racial. We hate racism and fascism and that is the main reason we don´t sing all the time abut how proud we are for being Galicians. That´s quite childish. We prefer to sing about our language, our hometown, our football team, our everyday´s problem rather about epic old battles or Celtic mithology. We are working class people and we live in Vigo city in the XXI century so we prefer to be oi!sters and punk rockers rather than ancient bards hahahaha.

5) Celtic cross was misused by :neonazis: but I use this symbol very often. Personaly I own one celtic tattoo like the view to the wealthy history. Do you have any problem because of your name or because of celtic cross like the band? Do you use this symbol too?

No, we don´t use Celtic crosses. Obviously we all know it´s not a nazi symbol, but in Galiza we have our own Celtic designs like the Triskel. That´s the one we prefer and we feel like ours rather than the Celtic cross. We never ever had any problems with our name. Keltoi is only the greek root of word Celt. Luckily in Galiza nazi movement is almost inexistent so when we go abroad every body knows that looking for fascist or nazis among Galician punks or skinets is wasting their times. When we read about Spanish nazis using celtic crosses we can just laugh. Poor bastards.

6) Tell me please something about your street-scene in your region. Is there strong skinhead scene ? And what about your hometown (interesting places, pubs, crews)?

The punk scene was quite strong in 1985 -1995, the following ten years it was the skinhead scene who rule the streets of our hometown, but the friendhsip was always above any street culture. Skins and punks never fought in Vigo, we all go to the same gigs, clubs, demostrations…

Apart from Vigo, there is an interesting scnene in some other Galician cities like Ourense ou A Coruña and even in some towns such us Lalin. Nowadays we think there is a need for generational replacement. There are almost no skins or punks under 28-30. Kids today prefer to become trendy wankers and dance techno or reggaeton rather than listing to oi!, punk , 2 Tone or skinhead reggae.

In our hometown (Vigo), you could find us in the old town in places like Princesa Bar or in Irmandinhos street in a couple of places such us “Irmandinhos 13”, “Rústiko” or “Cousa Nosa”. Besides when Celta Vigo plays at home we frequent the same bars as lots of local old faces….

Finally, in Vigo there always has been just one Crew. Football hooligans, punks, skins, antifascist and independence activist…we are all friends and make part of our big street family. That´s why we love Vigo.

7) I am sure you are much interested into socialism, working class, nationalism (or just patriotism?) etc. Do you consider yourself like a „redskinhead“ band? Some ?apolitics? could have problem with your political view. What would you like to message them? What are you fighting for, comrades?

Well, we do not like “labels” very much. If we had to choose one we would say we are just a Galician antifascist street punk band. All of us are antifascist but some of us are more involved in politics (trade union and independence movement) than others. Anyway,  antifascism and Galician nationalism is shared by all of us.

Obviously we have shared stage with lots of bands like us and with some more politically involved bands such as Opció K-95 or Eina. We all think that nowadays you should decide in which side are you on. We even have friends in just punk or apolitical bands. Provided they are not fascist, friends of fascist, or idiots, they are welcome.

Regarding “patriotism”, it´s a word we don´t like very much. Spain has always used the word “patria” as an excuse to attack Basque, Catalonian and Galician nation. Spanish “Patria” meaning one single nation being the Basque country, Catalonia and Galiza part of it. We prefer to call ourselves Galician Nationalist or “Arredistas” (word used in 1920´s by those who fought for Galician Independence). We never had problems with our polital views, basically because we don´t play for idiots or right wing scum.

Well, once in Santiago de Compostela (Capital City of Galiza) we played a live gig for the young independence movement and the whole place was surrounded by Spanish riot police. The funniest thing was seeing a couple of these cops moving their feet during our gig.

8) Is there any thing inside the skinhead scene which would you like to change ??? Is the nowadays scene stronger than that scene in which have you grown up? What is your opinion on all that „fights“ between SHARPs, RASH, anarchists, redskins…??? (anarchists hate soviet flags and they often stand against the reds). They dont know that the enemy is the only one? !!!

Well, the skinhead scene in Galiza is clearly smaller now than it was in the 90´s. But maybe this is good becasue it means lot of people in the 90´s became skinets just as a fashion or because of the football. Sometimes is better a smaller but united scene that a big one fool of trendies or wannabes.

Nowadays, if there is anything we would like to change that is internet. We mean the excesive use of it. When we were teenagers  we use to spend the whole day on the streets, playing football, hanging around, drinking with our friends etc…nowadays in our home town it´s easier to find skinheads and punks on the internet rather than on the streets. PC idiots….

For us internet is a very useful tool to spread your messages and your music, that is. Real life is on the streets, in the pubs, in the factories….not being 16 hours a day gossiping in the fucking facebook or twitter.

Finally and regarding the fights you mention…honestly we are proud to say we don´t have them at home. Where we leave most of the so called “apolitical” skinheads share the same pubs and gigs as us, most of them are good old friends because despite they are not into politics they hate nazis and don´t run in case of problems. They stay and fight.

Our local no political skinheads and punks perfectly know that there is a wall between us (antifascist) and nazi scum, and they behave and stick with us when fighting fascism. One thing is being no communist, socialist or anarchist and something different is hating them. In other words, at least in Galiza, the scene is united and that is how it should continue.

 9) Where can we buy your T-shirts, patches or some other stuff? Where can we find any information about your concerts?

Well, honestly we never paid too much attention to merhandising and it´s not easy to find the few things we have done for the band (just a couple of t-shirts and a patch). Keltoi! is not a professional band and we have short time for the band. So we prefer to spend that time in the studio rather than designing and sellings mercahndiding. We don´t really believe in “fans”, we prefer to talk about friends and if a friend wants a T-Shirt he/she has just to ask. Furthermore, we do´t have any kind or manager to look for gigs or promote the band. Everything is done by us.

Regarding information, as our myspace has almost died, you can use our email address ( semprekelt@gmail.com)  and our facebook profile www.facebook.com/KeltoiGZ

Concerning concerts, in 2014 we will just play once (Azkoitia – Basque Country on October the 25th). It has been a quiet year for us. Families, jobs and the recent back surgery of our guitar player (Mikele), together with the writing of new stuff for our third LP made us stop playing gigs.

8 new song are already written so we expect to come back on stage with a new album around mid 2015.

10) I was very very happy that I could see Banda Bassotti and ERODE bands together on 1 stage in Berlin last year. Now I am too happy that we are in touch!!! Do you think will you every play in any other european country?

Those are a couple of really good bands. We never saw Erode playing a live gig, but at least on studio they are masters!!

We were very close to play in London in 2013 but it´s always the same bullshit…we couldn´t do it because one of us works a lots of weekends. But take for sure that playing in some European countries is a dream for us and we hope to make it real before the band dissapears…

Nowadays there are lots of cheap flights and we live just 180 km far away from Porto airport so hopefully somebody will call us in 2015. We will be very proud to spread our antifascist street punk and our galician language wherever we are asked to do it.

11) What do you know about the Czech republic? ;-)
Well, honestly not too much. We know you have the highest rate of beer drinking per habitant hahahaha and that is a great new for the start.
Just our singer Sime was there for a week in 2012. He visited Prague and Bohemians ground but there was no match held that day. He said he attended a nice hard core gig in a park of Prague. He also visited lots of pubs and in his way from Prague to Karlovy Vary and  Dubina he also visited some Breweries. Don´t ask what the fuck was Sime doing in Dubina…he was drunk and kidnapped by some of his Czech friends hahahaha.
Anyway, we would like to visit your country and hope to be able to do it very soon. In the meantime, our cheers and regards to all the  antifascist skinheads and punks. Thanks Peter for the interview. Love music, hate fascism & racism!!

Keltoi!