LIFERS: December 2009

This is a interview I've done with Al over myspace , It was also in Lifers Issue 2.
Tremblay

Hey man, how are you?

Thanks for having me, hopefully this will make for a good read and will shed some light on everything. Everything is excellent and going according to plan.

How's life? What are you up to these days? How's Ohio is treating you?

Well as you get older, other things tend to take over your life, work, family, bigger responsibilities, bills, mortgages, making sure you set up a college fund for the kids, becoming a full time family diplomat and so on. So ya, life is good, I am working for a fortune 100 company, doing sales and marketing, I travel a lot and get to visit most of the major cities of the US. It’s like I'm on tour but I don't have to lug any gear. Ohio is awesome, nice and easy; it took some time to get used to had to slow it down a bit. Growing up in Boston you tend to race through everything, you never get to smell the flowers or enjoy your surroundings. It’s like everyone is in a hurry to get to the next thing, everyone tends to be so angry there and I don’t blame them. If I had to pay four times the rent and get taxed on everything I’d be pissed too. Maybe that’s why Boston Hardcore was so influential we had something to be pissed about, a lot of angst, we were all pissed off haha.

Where did you grow up? How was it? Any good or bad childhood stories?

I grew up in a suburban town south of Boston called Hingham (Rent “The Witches of Eastwick”) the scene where the husband beats the wife with a fire poker; that was in Hingham. Hingham is on the water; it's a beautiful town, very scenic. A lot of money, rich upper class for the most part. It seems so surreal and perfect, but we all know nothing is that. All the problems and issues that plague every town are there, just well hidden behind the fake facades. However there is always an exception to the rule, when you grow up in a clean environment with a solid family you have very little to complain about. My parents were married 49 years when my father passed away. This is unheard of by today’s standards. My parents were much older than all my friends and I think this had a major influence on my way thinking. My father worked the same blue-collar job for 32 years while being surrounded by white collar CEO’s of major corporations. You really start to figure out fast that you are the outsider in situations and surroundings like this. While everyone had everything handed to him or her, I had to work to get what I wanted. I was brought up by parents that saw the end of the Great Depression and lived through WWII. This gave me a different view of life and a totally different moral structure than my friends' hippy parents. I can remember mowing my lawn one day when a woman pulled up beside me in her convertible Mercedes Benz. She asked my how much would I charged to mow her lawn. I said to her I’m mowing my own lawn and she returned with a smug look on her face and said “ Huh you mow your own lawn” and drove away laughing. I then realized that people can be real shitheads and I knew that my surroundings could make me better if I didn’t conform to them. This same mentality echoed through the hallways of my high school and I made a real effort not to be like the sheep they were becoming. While they were all talking about getting stoned or drinking I was staying clear, I didn’t have to go far to see the outcome of alcoholism and the abuse that came with it. I dealt with it everyday at home, thus the first lessons of moderation began. I think this had a major impact on me in welcoming a Straight Edge lifestyle. At that age you really are like a piece of clay and can be molded into anything. I think Straight Edge helped me to handle some difficult situations and brought a more rapid pace of maturity. People now ask me didn’t you miss out on a lot by not experimenting, I refute by saying “if the loss of one brain cell kept you from achieving your goals or obtaining the perfect relationship, salary or dream would you waste it away on experimentation?” Now on the other hand, a lot of great things from art to music to government decisions have been made under the influence. I don’t regret the road I’ve chosen, what was good for me is not necessarily good for someone else. Recently I have seen on TV that they say Straight Edge is a gang related movement and teens are out of control. Well I can say it kept me free and clear of the pitfalls of adolescence and I made some great friends from it. I think that it has become the norm to be different now from Tattoos, colored hair, gothic looking, the scarier the better. I mean to be a punk, skinhead or metalhead in the early days really made you alienated and the outcast. You got beat up for looking different. You didn’t have your Manic Panic hair color or Thom McCann and Hot Topic selling you Doc Martins and the correct uniform in the mall. It’s almost a mockery now of what we helped create 20 years ago. The real eye opener is that life has come full circle; I’m now successful with a great career and a family and nice house. Am I the same as those people I despised when I was growing up? Punk Rock/Hardcore Punk/Straight Edge, its not a look or a sound it’s a way of life it’s how you think it is the passion that drives you, it’s the decisions you make throughout you’re life and how you live it.

Do you remember what was the first album that you bought and why you got it?

KISS Alive was my first album purchase. I remember seeing “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park” and thinking I gotta get some of this music I think I was around 7 or 8 years old. My brother used to have 8 tracks of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and I used to sneak in his room and listen to them, so I think this started me down the Heavy Metal road early on in life. But KISS just took it to another level for me heavy metal meets a comic book, what kid wouldn’t love that.

How did you make your way into the Boston Hardcore scene?

This is a long story, so I will try to summarize it. My mind is like a steel trap and I tend to rememb

er details of things that most people would just forget. It was 1983, I was 13 and I can remember walking into Quincy Records and Tapes, this was a favorite hang out for us and a great place to get all kinds of rare records. I was into metal then, they had this wall of new releases and I was looking at this new band called Anthrax and their record “Fist full of Metal”. Right next to it was this record by a local band SSD, it was called “Get it Away”. I kept looking at because I really liked the artwork, that blue logo and silverish print really stood out. Drawn by some little known artist named Pushead. Unfortunately I only had 10 bucks and bought the Anthrax record. But I would say that this was the first time I was drawn to and took notice of the hardcore scene. Many years later I would be in reach of the original artwork for “Get it away”. I was at the Taang record store When Steve Grimes of the FU’s walked in, I watched him sell the original artwork to the FU’s “Kill for Christ” and SSD’s “Get it Away” to Curtis for $500 bucks. Thinking now, I wish I had the money then and bought them.

Music ran in my family, my father was a well-known drummer and taught Drum Corps back in the 1950-1960’s. He is in the Massachusetts, National & World Drum Corpse Hall of Fame for the most consecutive wins in the history of Drum Corpse competition. My mother played piano and sang, and at the age of 16 my sister was the youngest band member to play for the Boston University Orchestra. When I was 12 or 13 I picked up a guitar from a friend of mine and started playing it almost immediately. It just seemed to come easy needless to say he was pissed so he let me keep the guitar. I remember my dad pressuring me to take lessons and I was so against it. I thought that I’d lose the heart felt playing and start playing with my head. I never took a lesson and I learned to play songs from ear. In 1987 my friend Chip had gotten a drum kit and we started a band. We would spend hours in his basement playing Metallica, Black Sabbath,

Led Zeppelin etc. Chip knew this straight edge band called DTX and a number of hardcore punks from our town. They were looking for a drummer to finish out their band. He was a natural fit and I guess he was really the first person to steer me towards hardcore music. I came to a couple of their practices and was really impressed with their guitar player Kevin Borowski. The music was pure energy and they had this awesome song called Semper Fi (Always Faithful). I really wanted to be a part of it but they didn’t need another guitarist. It wasn’t long before DTX disintegrated and they were regrouping into a new band called Suckerpunch. I joined them on guitar and we started writing, it wasn’t long before we had our fist show and it just snowballed from there. We played with bands like Raze, STP, Murphy’s Law, Said & Done etc… Suckerpunch only lasted about a year; once it fell apart Chip and I quickly started looking for recruits for our next project B’zrker. Later Suckerpunch would appear on the Boston Hardcore 1989-1990 Compilation on Taang records.

Favorite band at that time?

At that time I was a sponge and listening to everyone in the Hardcore scene. From Youth of Today, SSD, Agnostic Front, Negative Approach, DYS, Last Rights, Minor Threat, Uniform Choice, Cro-Mags I mean this list goes on and on. I’d say my favorite at the inception if Suckerpunch, was probably either the Bad Brains or Slap Shot.

The early 90's were a tough time for NYHC, but how was Boston? How was the Scene in the mid 90's?

Lets take a step back in time, everyone says hardcore ended in 1986 with the demise of Black Flag. SSD, Minor Threat, the Misfits and all the other major bands had moved on or called it

quits. By the time we had started getting into the scene it was just ending. There were many that picked up the torch and kept the ball rolling but something changed. By the late 80’s Crossover became popular (the mix of metal and hardcore) bands like Agnostic Front, DRI, Dr. Know, Biohazard, Carnivore, Suicidal most of the new NYHC and BMHC bands were all taking it to a higher level. It went from straight raw energy and replaced it with musicianship. We were learning how to play when we were in Suckerpunch; by the time B’zrker came about we were better musici

ans and had a bunch of shows under our belts. By the early 1990’s everyone had a more metal edge to them, 2 guitars, adding guitar solos even mixing singing in with the screaming. You saw a diverse crowd of skins, punks, metalheads & jocks at the shows now. By the early 90’s we were at war with Iraq in Desert Storm. Our country had its first major recession and we felt it. Clubs started closing all over Boston, we lost the Channel and other venues. We were scrambling to find places to put on shows. Not long afterwards, Grunge had come in and taken over and a new scene was born. I think this was the first time I realized that hardcore had its days numbered. I’m not saying it wouldn’t change and reinvent itself. I just think it was over, as we knew it. By 1992 I was starting another project called Crawl with Ex-Suckerpunch guitarist Scott O’Dowd. This band was melodic punk a major step away from where I just had come from. Music and the scene would eventually evolve and eventually it would fade and take a backseat to the rest of the things going on in my life.

What is the wildest thing that you saw at a show back then?

I remember this drugged out punk rocker rolling all over a broken beer bottle in the alley of Bunratty’s and saying he was Sid. He was all sliced up and bleeding and trying to hug everyone. My brother told me that at one of the B’zrker Shows he was in the bathroom and this kid came in all bleeding with a broken nose. He said he had just got kicked in the face and he was pissed he was missing the show. My brother said he was just sitting there trying to straighten his nose out in the mirror and saying the show was awesome. I think the coolest thing that ever happened to us as B’zrker was this hardcore kid named Sean Dubanowich and friends piled into a car and drove all the way from Albany NY to see us play at the Channel in Boston. We played with Biohazard, Type O Negative and Marauder. The show was sold out the crowd went ballistic. Most of the shows tend to be a blur but when I look at the immense collection of show fliers I have, it all starts to come back to me.

Did you play in any bands Before B'zrker?

Suckerpunch. After B’zrker: Crawl aka Bastard Squad & Deadshot

I know that you guys have released two 7 inches, the S/T and the "That's What You Get" 7". Did you put out anything else?

We recorded 3 demo tapes, only one was circulated to the masses. Two songs from the 2nd tape became the “That’s what you get” 7”. The 3rd tape (a full length album) was shelved and 2 songs became the S/T 7” and the East Coast Assault Comp. There was a bootleg CD that was circulated around. I used to work out at this gym and one day in the middle of a set this guy comes up to me and says are you Al Fisher, You can imagine what’s running through my head. Reluctantly I said yes and he said to me “you are the reason I play guitar”. I was floored; I had never had someone say anything so profound. It really made me feel good about myself. I mean the reason I was in music was to make an impact; to create something that would outlive me and influence others. In return I burned a copy of a CD of unreleased tracks. And the snowball began again and it has been circulating for the past 6 years.

Could you talk a little bit about the East Coast Assault comp?

The East Coast Assault CD is kind of funny, this guy Mike was working on the compilation and asked us if we would be interested in adding a track. Mike told me that they had a number of bands from Boston on the comp and we would be a great fit. We had just finished up the song “Inside” and thought we would send it to them and see if it was worthy. They loved it so much that they placed it early on in the track listing. The funny thing was, by the time the CD was released I had left the band and started a new project. I think this was the first time I thought to myself that I may have made the wrong choice.

Do you think it helped get the word out about B'zrker?

It definitely started a stir, but it was just too late. We had a lot of national exposure through the Nemesis release but not enough to get us over the hump. Music trends were changing so fast that we just went completely unnoticed or we just didn’t fit the bills. It got really hard at the end to get shows or even put on our own.

What are some of your favorite tracks on there?

I have always liked Only Living Witness and Sam Black Church. Overall it’s a pretty good representation of the crossover bands of the time. I mean you have Life of Agony on there and they ended up signing to a major from that release.

What is the worst/best thing that happened to you guys during your set(s)?

I was electrocuted on stage, Tom tossed a gallon of water and it splashed me soaking my entire guitar, I touched the mic stand that wasn’t grounded and I completed the circuit. I blew my amp and was tingling all over. Another time Tom revealed his manhood at a show in Old Town Maine while we were on tour with Tree and Toe Tag. I remember Chip and his drum kit disappearing into a large Fog Bank on stage, we asked the sound man for some fog and he gave it to us. If you ever seen Spinal Tap those moments happened in Hardcore too.

Why did you guys break up? If there were enough demand, would you reprint any merch?

It’s hard to put my finger on the exact reason as to why the band broke up. For me, it was a number of things. I can’t speak for anyone else but I was the first to let it go and walk away. The last straw for me was when we played a show in CT at a club called the Boiler Room. We were supposed to play with a number of NY bands but only Sub Zero showed, there were only about 10 people in the crowd and it just didn’t seem worth it anymore. I was burned out, it wasn’t fun and again the music scene was changing. We had paid the dues of 10 bands and really didn’t have a whole lot to show for it. I was also looking for a different creative outlet and wanted to play something other than Hardcore. The remaining members actually stuck together and started a band called Thug. They recorded a great demo Titled “Jumbo Jones”, If I come across it I’ll see if I can upload it or get you a copy. As for the merchandise, there is very little if any left. I don’t think it would be worth it to reprint any of the shirts, hell I don’t even know where the artwork ended up. Maybe Steve Grimes sold it to Curtis hehe.

Have you had any funny reactions to your BZRKER license plates?

Actually, I think most people just ignore it or don’t get it. I have yet to have a farmer come up to me and say I loved you guys.

Thanks again for sending me that burned discography last year. Any plans to officially release the unreleased material?

As of right now there are no plans to release the unreleased tracks as an album. If a label wants to approach me I’d be open to a pressing deal. I’m still in touch with all the members and I’m sure they would not object to a release. The recording, mastering & artwork are already done. However I cannot put resources into this project anymore than I already have. I’m currently working on building a Full Professional Recording Studio and it requires my full attention. I hope to be operational in 2 years. I’m working with an architect to finish the design now. The studio will be around 2000sq ft and I have been collecting gear over the past 3 years. We will see how it goes.

Do you still follow hardcore in 2009? If so, what are your favorite newer bands?

I do on occasion check the Internet and best buy for the more mainstream bands and follow their development. That is one thing I really miss about Boston, all the diverse record stores we had at our finger tips, you just can’t get that here in Ohio. I’m going to go see Bad Religion on July 9th in Cleveland. And the Freeze just came through here a week ago. As for new hardcore style bands (I use this term loosely because I wouldn’t necessarily categorize them as Traditional Hardcore), I really like a local band called “Settle the Sky” They are on Myspace check them out. Other bands I really like and have been following lately are From Autumn to Ashes, Diecast, Ignite, As I Lay Dying, Midnight Bombers just to name a few.

What is your favorite artist or group of all time, and tell us why?

This is hard to answer, there are so many from different genres of music.

Top 10 Records?

I’m going to do a top 10 records then a top 10 Hardcore Records . I could do a top 10 for almost every genre.

Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
KISS – Destroyer
Nirvana – Nirvana
Led Zeppelin – Houses of the holy
Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
Jeff Buckley – Grace
Simon & Garfunkel – Sound of Silence
The Smiths – Meat is Murder
U2 – War
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden

Top 10 Hardcore Records?

Agnostic Front – Victim in Pain
Slap Shot – Back on the Map
Uniform Choice – Screaming for Change

Society System Decontrol – The Kids Will Have Their Say
Leeway – Born to Expire
Ramones – Rocket to Russia
Husker Du – Land Speed Record
Ignite – Call on my Brothers
Misfits – Walk Among Us
Bad Brains – Pay to Cum
There are so many more that really fall into this list.

Top 5 movies?

Watership Down
Field of Dreams
Star Wars – A New Hope
Sid and Nancy
Another State of Mind

And give us an idea why they made the list.

The music list I think speaks for itself. As for the movies they all have some connection to overcoming adversity and reaching out to others.

What do you think about your new president?

We shall see over time how it turns out. I’m not much for popularity contests or the hype that stirs around them. I don’t vote and I don’t complain so I’ll leave it at that.

Favorite player of the: Celtics? Bruins? Red Sox’s?

I’m not a sports follower, never have been. I could not tell you heads or tails about any of them.

What is the best Dinner in your town and what's their specialties?

There is this place here called Chuds, it’s kind of funny because they totally ripped off Cheers (Bullfinch Pub) in Boston. The logo and the old wood bar are almost identical. Good Bar food. It’s funny I moved away from Boston to find a lot of similarities.

Any last words?

As much as we try to be individuals we end up all being the same. You only get one chance; the world keeps going long after you are gone. Make a lasting impression and influence others for the right reasons. If all else fails, live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse.