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Interviews  None
Dare Call It Treason
by Chris
Barnes
When I think Miami, Florida, I think of sun, beautiful women and rad tootskie.
Music that rips your head off doesn't really come into the equation, but
lemme tell ya brother, None Dare Call It Treason WILL rip your head off.
Based in the elements of pummeling hardcore and then further mutated with
doom, sludge and heavy psych leanings, NDCIT both bludgeon and challenge
at the same time. Hellride discusses the music and the Miami scene with
guitarist Bryon Elliot and screamer Adel Souto.
Hellride Music: Preparing for the Quiet War is a
helluva name for a record, and damn close gets to the overall feeling
that the listener would get giving this a spin. My wife closed the office
door and gave me a dirty look, a clear sign that it rules. Dirty, aggressive
- all the junk I like. Can you give us the history of None Dare Call It
Treason?
Bryan Elliot: I needed a singer for
my new band, First City Militia when we kicked out our old singer who
was a Sepultura Max wannabe. He did the voice well, but for someone born
in the U.S. he sure had a limited vocabulary. Every song was called something
like "The System" and had references to putting stuff "on
a shelf" whenever he needed a rhyme to the word "yourself".
Pretty cheesy. So I called Adel, who sang for one of my old bands Timescape
Zero, and he had nothing doing.
Adel Souto: We felt it was no longer
FCM, so I started throwing names around and None Dare Call It Treason
stuck. We played our first show in November of 2002 to a packed house.
A total fluke. We shouldn't have even been on the bill, and we were added
on very last minute. The band that dropped out, I had to cut-and-paste
our name over theirs on the flyer. Somehow word got around that NDCIT
was a Timescape Zero reunion. Timescape Zero was very popular in the Miami
scene back in the mid 90s. But all in all they enjoyed what they heard,
though only slightly similar to TZ.
Hellride Music: Speaking of Timescape
Zero and First City Militia, I know nothing of the Miami scene from which
you guys spawned. Seriously, I never hear about Miami when it comes to
heavy music. Give us a snapshot of the scene... it's past, present and
what you think the future is.
Bry: The scene is okay, I guess. There
are a lot of bands around now.
Adel: Too many sometimes. People start
to fight over spots at shows, two to three shows a night, so people don't
know who to go see and you wind up with 20 people at each show instead
of a 100 or more.
Bry: Other than the number of bands
I don't know much because I don't go out much.
Adel: The scene itself is pretty strange.
You have several big local labels, who hardly help out smaller local bands.
They usually look for bigger out-of-town bands to sign, and wait for the
smaller bands to play like hell, sell tons of merch themselves and when
they get "well known enough" then they'll give them opening
slots on their better known shows.
But don't get me wrong, I still love the local scene, and while you hear
of some good bands here like Malevolent
Creation, Trust No One, Where Fear and Weapons Meet, Shai
Hulud, Poison
the Well and Glasseater,
you also have lesser know bands that shred equally - if not more. Like
Tyranny of Shaw, Adore Miridia, Kult
of Azazel, The Anchorite Four, On Our Own, Into
the Moat, All Hell Breaks Loose and tons more.
Hellride Music: NDCIT basis seems
rooted in hardcore, and then it's mutated with various other styles -
thrash, sludge, doom, etc. Would you agree with that? Does NDCIT consider
itself a hardcore band or does it even think about that kinda thing and
just rock out?
Bry: Yeah, we're a hardcore band. I
write the hardcore stuff, and Adel ruins it with other stuff. Just kidding.
Adel: I do consider us a hardcore band.
I'll admit, if I didn't write some of the other parts to these songs we
would be just straight-up hardcore. I love hardcore, but I also love thrash,
death metal, stoner rock, doom and even electronic, jazz and classical
stuff.
Bry: I think it's the mix of music
that helps us write songs that are vicious and powerful, yet diverse in
heavy genres. My influences are bands like Cro-Mags,
Youth
of Today, Bad
Brains, Rest in Pieces and some of the newer metalcore like Converge
and Poison the Well.
Adel: But I'm the one that keeps the
band up-to-date on where music is going. I bring CDs to practice all the
time from bands like Racebannon,
Mastodon, Dead to Fall,
Darkest Hour, The
Glasspack and Church
of Misery. But I also pull out and bring along obscure classics like
Universal Order of Armageddon, Jihad, Heroin, Spazz, Dropdead
and Born
Against.
Hellride Music: Lets talk about
the songs for a bit. "Plague" sounds like it's a narrative from
someone who is a germ phobe... "A Poem of Love and Death for Someone
Whom I Love but Must Die" is from the point of view of a "if
I can't have her, no one will" type of thing. Basically every song
on here appeals to the fucked-up and the fucked. Who writes the lyrics
and where does this stuff come from? Sounds like the local Metro page.....
Bry: That is all Adel. He's the brainy
one.
Adel: When it comes to lyrics, I was
of the lyrical school where anyone with half a brain cell could decipher
what the hell I'm talking about. Now with NDCIT there are some that are
more esoteric. "Plague" is about someone "phobic"
of germs, but a fake one. I knew someone that confused Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder, with being afraid of disease, and she faked having the later
disorder by washing her hands all the time. She never realized people
with real phobias would take a million more precautions than just washing
their hands four or five times a day.
"A Poem of Love and Death..." is part three of a single 9 minute
song. Part 1 is called "Whoremonger Says Pretty Things" and
is about male violence against women. Then "Has Gone" (part
2) is about the woman wising up and leaving the relationship. You hit
the nail on the head about "A Poem" - if he can't have here,
no one will - so he kills her. And it ends with Part 4 "Dead Man
Weeping" where he is put to death via Ol' Sparky (Florida's electric
chair).
"Señor Bueno vs. Mr. Fistface" is one of those that anyone
can tell what I'm writing about. People who keep getting in your face
and in your way.
"All I Have IS My Shadow" is a funny tounge-in-cheek song about
some people's fear of death. Many claim that after death, that's it; you
die, no more, cease to exists, etc - yet they believe in ghosts. So I'm
saying to my dead and buried friends - may they all rest in peace - by
not coming back and telling me what is on "the other side" they
are in a sense telling me what there really is... nothing.
We have a few other songs we have yet to record. "Tacitus" about
the historian and fears of being a great leader. "Tirade Against
an Imaginary Enemy" is about chemical corporations who feed the sick
pills, but are killing them anyhow. "Feeding the Sharks" is
about people who tell you the best defense is no defense. Passivity -
it doesn’t work.
And we have a bunch more on the way.
Hellride Music: Adel, in the live
pics on your website, you're wearing a tie. Stagewear, statement, or were
you late getting to the gig from work?
Adel: No. No statement or even stagewear.
It was simply our first show, so we dressed for the occasion.
Hellride Music: So, where do you
want NDCIT to go? Is it more of a gigging type of band or do you guys
actually want to get signed and all that stuff?
Bry: We just want to play music. And
if we get to tour a bit, that would be great.
Adel: Yes, we're both on the same path.
We love music and don't really want to make tons of money off it. We just
want to play shows and if we get to tour - as NDCIT, since we toured when
we were in Timescape Zero twice - that would make it all the more worth
it. We're very into the DIY ethic, but if a small label approached us
we would love to give them a few songs.
Hellride Music: Please explain to
the audience the purpose and content of your E-zine, "Feast of Hate
and Fear"?
Adel: Feast of Hate and Fear was an
old fanzine I did from 1990 until 2000. In 2001 people where still mailing
me stuff, asking for new issues and whatnot. So I decided to put it up
on the web, with a few extras. The articles section contains a few of
the better articles from FHF. The archives section is a collection of
weird, obscure and kooky writings and pamphlets from groups that champion
Satanic Christianity, Left Wing Nazis, Black Power Masons, and God-fearing
Atheists. That section is to make people read and realize there is much
more to the world than just good-bad religion, left-right politics. There
are some in the middle and others so far out there they meet on both ends,
like a circle.
The main purpose of FHF was to make people realize they are not living
in "reality" but in a "reality tunnel" forced upon
them by their own selves or their parents. Life is hard, but it's also
easy. Notice we never say "life sucks" when we've just smoked
a fattie and are having sexual relations with our most loved one. "Reality"
is what is happening at all times, everywhere. A "reality tunnel"
is how your mind interprets it and what you make of it at that moment.
Sorry if I lost most of you.
Hellride Music: If people want to
get a hold of "Preparing for the Quiet Wars", what's the best
way to do it?
Bry: They can write in for one. Send
$3 to the FHF address (13414 SW 111 Terrace Miami, Florida 33186) and
you'll get the demo, plus whatever else Adel feels like throwing in the
envelope.
Adel:: Stickers, pins... I always give
people their money's worth.
Hellride Music: Thanks for the interview,
fellas...anything else you'd like to add?
Bry: We'd like to thank Hellride for
taking the time to give us some cyber-space. Please check out our music
on the web - for free - and decide for yourself if you like what you hear,
enough to send us three bucks. With some luck, we should be out on the
road this winter of 2003.
Adel: Thanks to Chris of Hellride Music
for the interview. Check our webpage for updates and look out for the
"A Break-Up with No Make-Up" demo also out soon. Take care all,
because it's kaliyuga.
 Read
the Hellride Music review
of Preparing For the Quiet War
Download
an MP3 of Plague
Visit
the None Dare Call It Treason website at www.feastofhateandfear.com/NDCIT.html
Copyright 2002-2003 HellrideMusic.com
Interview by Chris
Barnes 7/26/03
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