MAXIMUMROCKNROLL INTERVIEW
Originally published in 1989

I've noticed a tendency for people in the alternative scene, especially the anarchopunk scene, to idolize members of bands and then "turn their backs" and say they're shit later on. It's like they're always looking for ways to knock them down.
VIC: Well, it's like king of the mountain, they put these people on pedestals so they can knock them down.
AMY: Or, "Stop preaching at us, we want to party."
AL: It's because they idolize them. Like when Steve Ignorant joined Conflict or something; people were like, "Oh no, you can't have pacifist working with those nasty direct action types."
VIC: Well, there we go again, that's where labels get harmful, 'cause everyone has certain rules about what they think you should be. It's really easy to create an image and then believe in it.
AL: Certain bands believe in themselves enough to go up and say, "This is what I believe in," whether someone knocks them off their pedestal, (whcih they may not ever have been on in the first place,) or not has no bearing on their satisfaction with themselves, with their personality, with what they do.
VIC: If you feel someone has put themselves up on a pedestal, most likely, they're still on the same level and you've just crawled under them. Most people that criticize you for something are usually criticizing something they find in themselves and want to redirect attention away from.
AL: Yeah, it's the same with people who gossip and rumor and backstab in the scene. They have a lack of substance in themselves that they have to fill by slandering you. The minute you step up and say, "Let's try and change something," there's going to be a whole cre, an entire force that's gonna say, "No, let's keep it the way it is because I have power, I don't want to give it up."
VIC: There's always gonna be someone to try and take away everyting you've worked for.
AL: The only thing is, they can't take away what we have inside. They can take away the band, they can take away the zine, they can take away the whole damn movement, but they can't take us away.

Two words: The Future.
VIC: I would want my children and my children's children to live in an environment where they feel they belong. When you're born, all these layers of shit are piled onto you, to actually get anything done you gotta cut through all the bullshit.
AL: We have to strive to peel off layers of conditioning and oppression that have been piled on us since birth and strive to ...
AMY: ... create.
AL: ... a ...
AMY: ... better, truer, freer ... regime! (Laughter)
AL: We almost had it, we almost had it!
VIC: There's an old painting by Flemish artist Heieronymous Bosch called, "The Ship of Fools" where it shows all of these people in a boat. There's a big tree in the middle with all this fruit on it, yet the people in the boat are all facing each other, arguing about it, talking ... and no one is paying attention to where the boat is going. We're all on this ball of dust called Earth and we're arguing about borders, race, creed, hairstyles, petty bullshit. No one's paying attention to the fact that there's not gonna be a place to argue on much longer.