Could you tell us anything about each member of your band?
We've been together for 3 years now, we started off as 3 punks and 1 skinhead (myself), now it's 3 skinheads and 2 punks. I sing, and write most of our lyrics. Brian is the only other founding member, he plays guitar and has written most of our music. Matt is the next longest running member, we stole him from a shit punk band, he plays drums and does double duty with our friends Wake Up Cold (Baltimore Hardcore). Tim plays bass, and our newest member Jimmy the Tooth plays lead guitar and has started writting a lot of our music.

And what´s about skinhead or street-unity scene in your area or region?
Baltimore has a great skinhead scene. It's small, but pretty close, people do a good job of looking out for each other and it is absolutely a nazi free zone. Generally things go well between skins, punks and hardcore kids. There are a handfull of bands here that have mixed all the subcultures and musical styles really bringing everyone together. Aside from us there are the Dead End Boys who play killer Oi! and rock n roll with a touch of hardcore punk, Wake Up Cold - old school hardcore and metal, Whiskey At The Wake - Irish traditional/folk and punk and the newest arrivals, the Slumlords who feature members of legendary bands Breakdown, Next Step Up and Stout; they play a great crossover of punk and hardcore.

Can you give me your Top-Ten (I don´t care – it can be Oi!, Punk, Ska, Reggae….).
Right now for me it's the Bruisers - up in flames
The Clash - Give Em Enough Rope
Peter Tosh - Equal Rights
The Pogues - Red Roses For Me
The Dead End Boys - Drunk and Disorderly
Fate 2 Hate - Iron Fist
Discipline - saints and sinners
Discipline - love they neighbor
Discipline - nice boys finish last
Madball - the best of

what I've heard from the new Attila/Barnstormer cd sounds killer too, that will probably be on my list once it's available.

Your discography (have you been recorded for any compilation?
Which song(s))?
I'll try to do these in some sort of order:

City Of The Dead 5 song cd/ep (demo) - self released by us

V/A Class Pride World Wide 2 - insurgence records, features the original demo version of Cowards Pride

V/A Baltimore 28 Nazis 0 - baltimore union label, benefit comp. for antifa legal expenses, features songs from the demo, and live versions of Cowards
Pride and Get Out

Thus Hope Fades - insurgence records, this was our first full length CD, the first run is almost sold out, it's currently being repressed and will hopefully come out on vinyl at some point.

Love and Rage #2 - benefit comp for All People Equal Australia, features the full length version of Cowards Pride

Party Lies 7" ep - this should be out any day from Insurgence records, features 3 unreleased songs: Party Lies, Blamed, The System

Sacrifice and struggle cd/lp - our second full length should be out this summer from Insurgence, 8 brand new songs, 10 songs total

there are a few other compilations tha we've submitted songs for that still havent seen the light of day, these include a comp on cornerstone records covering Baltimore hardcore past and present.


Why did you decide to become skinheads ?
I don't even know if I could answer that. For the three skinheads in the band, it's something we've all been involved with for a long time, our drummer Matt has been a skinhead since I was in primary school. For me, it had to do with the people I hung out with, it was an outlet for the anger and frustration I had as a kid that let me have some pride in myself and where I came from.

Can you please tell me anything more about your picture cover from your debut CD…Thus hope fades ?
The two photos on the cover of Thus Hope Fades are from the early part of the 20th century. The front cover is a photo taken after the massacre in the mining camp at Ludlow Colorado. Striking miners were gunned down and burnt out by government troops and hired goons, it was one of the darkest days in American labor history. The back cover, shows the fighting spirit of American workers, the men holding the flags are members of the IWW (syndicalist union), surrounded by government troops during a millitant protest for free speech and against world war I. For me the images show both the strength of the working class and who our real enemies are.

Have you problems with any immigrants? Did they thing that you are bonehead or did they know what you are?
Baltimore has a really fast growing South American immigrant population, I work with a lot of great guys from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Honduras etc. We've started to see some latino punks coming around which is really cool. There havent been any problems between the skin scene or the punk scene and the immigrant communities.

Your debut is excellent and the best song for me is Cowards pride and Deathsquad. Which song is the best for each of you?
Both of those have always been favorites for all of us, Bottoms Up and Silence Is Murder are two of my personal choices. To me, they show more of the varied musical style that we try and work with now rather than straight forward Oi! or hardcore.

Which land is the best for doing streetmusic? ?
There are so many great bands all over the world, it's impossible to say. Canada has The Prowlers, The Class Assassins, Fate 2 Hate, Jeunese Apatride. America has more great bands than I could even think to name, but some of the best and better known are the Dropkick Murpheys, Madball, The Hudson Falcons, Murphys Law. The Argies from Argentina and Ratos De Parao from Brazil are both excellent. Discipline, Backfire and Born From Pain are some of my favorites from Holland and The Stage Bottles, 4 Promille and EK77 are great German bands. There are killer bands all throughout the rest of Europe, especially The Analogs (Poland), Wildcat Strike (Sweden), Brigada Flores Magone, No Time To Lose and Bolchoi! (France), Youngang and Razzaparte (Italy) etc. there are excellent bands In Latin America, Europe, Asia, everywhere. Right now especially street music is international, there are bands I would love to get to play with everywhere.

Your future plans?
We've got two new releases coming out on Insurgence in the next couple of months, the new full length will coincide with our US/Canadian tour this summer. We're currently writting new material which will probably be recorded at the end of the summer. We'd love to start working on a European tour for next year...really we have a lot of opportunities right now and people are starting to take notice of us...it's a matter of making the most out of what we have.

Redskins, RASH, SHARPs…tell me what do you know about and your attitude?
The skinhead scene here is very non political, but also very anti racist. There are some people who would call themselves SHARP, and a few people with left/red/socialist leanings, but not many. There are RASH groups in Philadelphia and New York as well as some other redskin crews, I don't know much about any of them. We played Montreal courtesy of the RASH Montreal section last year, they were all great guys and treated us really well, and obviously we get on well with the redskins that are involved with Insurgence. I think in general we agree on most things with most left wing skins even if we don't wish to be involved with any of the groups that are around.

Are you interested in policy?
I try to keep up on global events and US politics...if not my lyrics would turn into "government bad people good" and thats just demeaning to our listeners I think. But, yeah, I read a lot, especially about politics and history, and try to keep up on the things I believe in.

Could you describe your style of music by your own words?
haha, good question....we call it street rock. It's from the streets and it rocks, I guess thats it. We play a mix of Oi!, street punk, rock n roll, hardcore, metal and reggae...really anything that has feeling and sounds good to us.

What can you say about your textes? (Very clever I think!!!)
Like I said, I write most of the lyrics, although other people in the band have written songs and help out with my stuff. We mean everything we sing, and we try to have well thought out lyrics. When we first started, they were pretty simple...more general messages, but we really try to have something to say about human rights, anti fascism, or the importance of friendship and unity in all of our songs now. Not everything is serious, but it's all real.

Do you love any land in this blue planet? And why?
We all love America, maybe not in a nationalist way, but in our own way deffinately. It's where our friends and families are as well as the struggles closest to our hearts. Despite its problems, and our leaders its a beautiful country that is as diverse as all of Europe, and full of every type of person imaginable. Some of us have travelled a lot, and met great people and found things we really love all over the world, but this will always be home.

May we order any T-shirts or other things from you? Where?
You can order t-shirts, cd's etc. from Insurgence Records (http://www.insurgence.net). When our new website is up (http://www.fightingchancemd.com) there will be exclusive t-shirts, badges, patches and stickers for sale, and there are a number of distros in Europe which carry our stufff.

Which part of woman´s body are you keen on? :-)
My girlfriend is sitting next to me while I type this, so for safetys sake all of it..but only hers! ;)

When skinhead starts to be a non-skinhead?
Some people give it up. I don't hang out now as much as I did when I was younger, between work, school, a relationship and a full time band it's hard to find time to go to the bar or whatever, but it still means the world to me and my friends are still family who I would do anything for. Some people give it up in their hearts, they forget what it once meant to them and what they meant to their friends. That's when it ends, the haircut isn't nearly as important in having loyalty to your crew etc.

Have you any idols (great persons from history)?
Hows the line go? Take no idols, only inspiration. With that said, Joe Hill (IWW founder and class war martyr), Joe Strummer, Johnny Cash, Mensi, Thomas Paine (left wing leader of the American Revolution), Eugene V. Debs (IWW founder and early socialist leader), James Connolly (Irish republican leader and martyr), all rebels, radicals, and riotous malcontents that have given it all to improve our world (or rock n roll)

Who is public enemy No.1 for everybody?
greed

Do you like American flag? What´s do you think about when you see this flag?
I've got a couple of them tattooed on me. To me, it represents the people I love and the ideals that this country is supposed to be about, freedom, equality, justice etc. It's too bad that our government leaves the rest of the world hating the sight of our flag.

Release – some regards or your mottos to Skin-Read readers?
Thanks a lot for the interview, remember where you come from and always stand up for the working class. Borders are shit, punks, skins and working class rebels from any country have more in common than all of our shit leaders. Stay rude, stay rebel. No Pasaran!