First of all, present members of the band, please.
Joshi (guitar/ lead vocals)
Age: 21
Interests: politics, punk & party
Henny (guitar/vocals)
Age: 22
Interests: music
Eike (bass-guitar)
Age: 23
Interests: none
Flori (drums/vocals)
Age: 23
Interests: Website-Design & Animal-Rights (Flori works for PETA)
How did you come together and start playing music?
ZSK was founded in 1997 by some young punx, which didn't even know how to
play an instrument. We recorded a Demo-Tape, then a SplitCD. We did lots of
shows and shared the stage with bands like: Bad Religion, Exploited, Die
Toten Hosen, Distillers, Agnostic Front, Taking Back Sunday, US Bombs, Down
By Law, Anti-Flag and many more. In April 2006 our third album "Discontent
Hearts And Gasoline" came out on Bitzcore-Records. Until now we did 5
European-Tours, more than 300 shows in 9 different countries and there is
more to come...
New album strongly differens from your older stuff. Is it mean that you grow
out of punk-rock music limits?
Definitely not! We still feel at home in the punkscene, but we wanted our
new album to sound different. There is nothing more booring, than bands
which release 3 albums, that all sound the same.
All new songs except one in German. Do you try bring your message to compatriots in in the first place?
We are a german band so we sing a lot in our native language. Butt hat
doesnt mean we dont want people from our countires to check out our music.
Actually we got many fans in France, Italy, England and the czech republic.
They like both of our songs: english and german ones.
Sometimes I feel like making english lyrics sometimes german. That depends.
There is no special meaning behind it, we just don't want to say "Ok, we
only do german songs" or "We only do english songs cause its cooler".
You touch on a racism in your songs. How much is actual this problem in the
Germany society now?
Germany has a big racism-problem. On the one hand there are well organized
and dangerous militant nazis and racist and on the other hand there is a big
part of the society which supports more or less strong racist opinions.
Together this is a very bad mixture and we do everything we can to stand up
against this development.
Did you hear anything about the murder of anti-fascist activist, anarchist,
musician Timur Kacharava by neo-nazis in St.Petersburg several months ago?
Or about recent tragedy in Moscow, when 19-year old kid was attacked and
stabbed to death by a group of nazis on the way to punk/hc concert? What do
you think about it?
Of course we did. There are lots of benefit-shows and support-groups in
Berlin who are gathering money in order to help anti-fascist groups in
eastern countries. Indymedia-Germany provides good information about the
nazi-scene in your country. I have to admit, that all the info sounds really
scary to me. Fortunately the German Nazis are not as militant and dangerous
as in Eastern Europe.
What do you worry about most in your life and in the world?
In my life: loosing good friends
In the World: War and hunger
Are all you in the band vegetarians?
Yes! 3 of us are vegetarians and our drummer is vegan.
How much are you politically active? Are you in any movements? What organizations do you support?
We always say, that ZSK is our political group. Besides the band we have no
time to work in any other group or job. But as a band we work together with
many political groups. We do benefit-shows, Benfit-shirts and give money to
groups, which we think need our support.
G8-summit will be in Jule 2006 in St.Petersburg, Russia. Do you want say
something to those of our readers, who are going to take part in the protest
actions there?
We hope you guys will kick some as there! And we hope to see you 2007 in
germany when we will try to stop the g8 in rostock. Keep on fighting!
We also made a mobilization-video for the g8-protests. Check it out here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xt7ptPku8
What music did you grow up with? What had the most influence on your world view?
Groups which influenced us are probably Sham69, Propagandhi, the Ramones,
Good Riddance, Minor Threat, Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys. But also
From Ashes Rise, F-Minus, Caliban, Yellwo Machinegun or Pennywise.
What are your 5 favorite punk/hc records?
Operation Ivy - Energy
Propagandhi - Less Talk, More Rock
Ausrotten - The System Works For Them
Rancid - And Out Come The Wolves
Against All Authority - Destroy What Destroys You
Do you have any side-projects?
No. Unfortunately we dont have any time for such things.
What do you do except music? Do you have day job?
We all study at the university. We hate day jobs.
Do you know any russian punk/hc bands? If yes, what do you think about them?
We know Spitfire, Purgen, Naive, Distemper, Tarakany and Instructions To Survive, but thats it.
What do you think about punk bands worked with major media corporations, like Anti-Flag and RCA Records? Can you imagine ZSK on major label?
I dont care what Anti-Flag does or not. They can do whatever they want. I
wont be the one to juge them. Besides that i dont have a problem with
major-labels. Rage Against The Machine are a great band and have been on a
major, without loosing their political views. Against Me!, Rise Against, AFI
and many other good bands are on majorlabels too.
I heard of you made movie "Kein Bock auf Nazis". Could you tell me about it?
This is a free DVD against nazis and racists. We started this whole project
and invited famous german bands like Die Toten Hosen and Die Дrzte for it.
Until now we manage to hand out more than 40.000 free DVDs in order to make
the kids fighting against fascism. That is our idea of political music.
Action always speaks plouder than words (or music).
How about skateboarding? Snowboarding? Or may be other stuff of this sort?
We dont have time anymore to skate, but sometimes weg o snowboarding. But it
is fucking expensive....
How do you think, german football team have chance to win the home
championship this summer?
Hopefully they lose. I hate germany and the german soccer-team as well.
If you will get the chance to do your show in Russia, do you take it?
Of course! We love to play in other countries and get to know punks from all
over the world.
Thank you!!! I wish you and ZSK good luck and keep rockin! Finally comments?
Thank you very much for the interview. I think that was our very first
interview for a fanzine from russia. Hooray! Keep punkrock alive and check
out our website: www.skatepunks.de
Official website: www.skatepunks.de
Smash (special for punks.ru)
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