I got sent a demo of
Robben Island by their promoter Mandii Flint. Yeah I liked the Street
Feel to their music so I sent off this interview. Here´s what Robben
Island had to say:
Punk Globe: First off who´s in the band and who plays what?
RI: Kris on rhythm guitar and joint lead vocals, with Will on lead
guitar ‘cus he’s shite at rhythm and also joint lead vocals with Kris.
Coleman’s on bass guitar. Which only leaves Ollie on sticks. We should
also give a quick mention to fantastic mister Adie who plays keys on our
recordings.
Punk Globe: How would you guys describe yourself as a band?
RI:
Punk Rock and Roll baby! Bit of punk, bit of rock, bit of ska… So it
gives all the “scene” kids maximum opportunity to knock us. Go on, have
a look at your insult book and slander away. We’ll give you our
influences too so they can really dig in. The Clash, Rancid, Operation
Ivy. There are the big three influences to knock you for dealt with.
Also Pennywise, Morning Glory, LoC as well as the Libertines and the
Futureheads. Oh oh eh oh. Genius.
We’ve also been told we sound like the Pistols crossed with the
Specials. But then we’ve also had a lot of obscure ones, like we sound
like Crass. We don’t think we do. Anyway you get the idea.
Punk Globe: What made you decide to form the band and how did
you guys all meet?
RI: Will had a few bands before but nothing had ever happened with ‘em,
musical differences etc, plus his musical taste was still developing.
Anyway he picked up Kris on the Internet who thought he was on
matchmakers.com or summat… You see Will was looking for love at the time
and mixed up the forums he was posting in, but it turned out Kris could
play guitar as well so all’s well that ends well.
So from their mutual love of punk they set out to find the brave two men
to complete the line-up. But when that didn’t work out we ended up with
Ollie and Coleman. Nah seriously it was a hard road getting the final
line-up, at our first gig supporting the Foamers we had Jakk on drums
and that prick West on bass - but that’s a story for another day. Oh and
we formed so we could make shit loads of money and become corporate rock
whores. Amen to that.
Punk Globe: Where do you get the ideas for your lyrics from?
RI: Well when we formed a couple of year’s back I guess we were a lot
more political, but now the stuff comes from more personal shit. I like
to write about things I see around me, someone getting off a train could
inspire a lyric, or it could just be a book I’ve read. Sometimes the
songs do have an underlying political thing. But we don’t like to get
into that too much anymore - it’s a minefield, people just use it as an
excuse to trip you up on stuff. We think writing about stuff that’s
actually happened to you has more integrity anyway, which is really
important. If rock and roll has no integrity then it loses its soul. You
can tell when a bands on stage and they mean what they’re singing. Take
a song like Jonny Riot, that songs about a guy that really means a lot
to Will, really strongly affected his viewpoint on the world. So when he
sings it, you can see in his eye’s he means it. Street Level Rock and
Rolls the same, we live for that shit.
Punk Globe: You´ve currently had to cancel a European Tour
because of a vicious attack on one of your brothers so are there plans
to reschedule this?
RI: Plans are being made to go back to Europe next spring, hopefully for
a longer time as well. It’s gonna be
with the Weekly Carouse and hopefully the Derita Sisters too. Check both
of em out, their awesome. And while were on the subject we just wanna
say thanks to Frank and the Carouse boys for sorting it all out in the
first place. Were sorry that we had to let people down but families
family and Kris has gotta be here for Ant.
Punk Globe: Talking of gigging and stuff what type of venues do
you tend to play?
RI: It’s a mix really. We’ve played tiny little shit holes as well as
bigger venues. Think the biggest was the oxford zodiac, which is 600
cap. That gig was fuckin´ awesome; we had such a good time. Nice big
stage, loadsa room to run around on and a nice sized crowd to bounce
off. That’s always helps ‘cus were pretty physical on stage. I guess on
average though we play venues between 100 - 300 cap.
Punk Globe: Have you had much stick from the Anti Rancid brigade
for the Rancid influence in some of your songs?
RI: Not really. Well not to our faces at least. Balls to them though to
be honest, we couldn’t give a shit. The bigger a band gets the more
stick they get from the “punker than thou” parade but surely what’s
important is the music right? If you lose sight of the music and start
worrying about what’s cool and what’s not then your listening to rock
and roll for the wrong reason. We could reel off a bunch of influences
that would make some people turn their nose up at us before they’d ever
even heard or seen us. Like we said we love the Libertines, but they
probably aint cool enough for some people. Or maybe they play the wrong
sort of music to be accepted by “your crew” - but fuck it, it’s the
songs that are important.
Everyone should know we´re music lovers first and foremost. The fact
that we play punk rock and roll is just cus that’s our favourite, but
were not gonna worry if you don’t think were not cool cus Will like’s
Razorlight. Or that Ollie like’s Hip-Hop. Or that one of us is into
roots blues. Anyone who says that’s shit needs to examine where rock and
roll came from in the first place anyway, cus without it we wouldn’t be
here. The important thing is the music, not who wrote it or what style
it is. A good song is a good song. Tim Armstrong’s a big influence. So’s
Joe Strummer. There we said it. What you gonna do? Not come see us? Not
buy our record? Piss off then, ‘cus your heads in the wrong place´.
Punk Globe:
Are there any plans to release a single or album in the not too distant
future?
RI: Well our debut Half Empty?.. is available on punkermentality.com
now. So go and buy it so we can afford to do another. We will be back in
the studio ASAP to record the follow up. It’d be nice to do a double,
like 19 tracks like London Calling. But we’ll see what happens. Were
gonna be real open minded with what we put down, like we said a good
song is a good song so don’t be surprised when every track on there
isn’t balls out distorted hardcore.
Punk Globe: You´ve opened up for bands like The Business and the
US Bombs so how did you go down with their fan base?
RI: To be honest the Business gig and the US Bombs gig were probably two
of our worst ever. In terms of attendance anyway. We played good though.
It wasn’t just low attendance for us either - the headliners had a
pitiful crowd. I think it was the fact that both were in Reading too.
Those scenes disappeared a bit in recent times, considering how packed
the Leftover Crack gig was a few months previous, and that wasn’t even
in the centre of Reading. Even our first gig with the Foamers was better
attended than the US Bombs. Combination of that, it starting at 6 and
ending at 10 and the fact that the Fez was 600 cap so it seemed even
emptier. Still onward and upward. Some big supports like that in London
would be nice, or at the more major gig towns across the country. But we
can only see what the future brings.
Punk Globe: Anything you´d like to add?
RI: Buy our record and come to our gigs!
Thanks to Robben Island for taking time out to do the interview
and thanks for Mandii Flint for arranging it.
