Here's an interview we did for an Indonesian zine last august. It came out only in indonesian, but we put quite a bit of work in it, so we just put the English version on myspace for anyone who might be interrested:
-Hey Roel, could you please introduce your band?
Eye of judgement is a Vegan Straight Edge band from the Netherlands. We started rehearsing in the summer of 2004 but the band was not complete until winter of that year. We started this band because we had the feeling that Vegan Straight Edge was disappearing from the public agenda at least in the Netherlands and we wanted to counteract that.
In the Dutch hardcore scene the music seems to have lost its message and everyone just seems fine with that. We hope to counteract that with this band and we hope to make Vegan Straight Edge a healthy part of hardcore again.
We declare war on the pretentiousness of this so called "hardcore scene", as mentioned in our lyrics for the song Moral Supremacy: 'you call yourself a counter-culture but you counter nothing, you uphold the same sickening values as the world you claim to loathe'. We want to bring back awareness of the fact that this scene could be so much more than just some loud music. Hardcore should be a threat to society and its so-called morals again.
-why the name xEYE OF JUDGEMENTx?
The name Eye of Judgement refers to two things. First there is the "Eye" which means that this is the way we see the world. And it is not a positive vision at all. And that is where "Judgement" rears its head, which means that we pass judgement on this world. We strongly disapprove of the way mankind treats the earth and all life that exist on this planet. We do not seek to judge individuals since that is a futile and never-ending exercise because of the state of moral decay of modern society. Instead we condemn all of mankind for the murder of the earth and all living things on it. In the end we are all guilty.
-what have you released so far?
In January 2005 we recorded our demo-tape "The War Has Begun", which we released ourselves as a home tape. This tape was later re-released by our friend Jigs from Abusive Action on his label XdiscontentX records. We still have a number of these left for real collectors.
In November "The War Has Begun" was re-released by New Eden Records as a remastered 7", with artwork by the notorious Dwid Hellion (You might know him from his band Integrity), but that one is also almost sold out.
Our new album "The New Crusade" is finally out, also through New Eden Records and it has proven to be a blast. The album contains 10 songs, among which the complete "The War Has Begun" 7". This album will also be released as a LP version with some bonus tracks.
-how would you describe your music?
When we first started out we were looking for a sound that was mainly influenced by true hardcore bands such as Slapshot and The Path of Resistance, and that is what the demo-tape sounded like. After that we went looking for a bit of a heavier sound, to match the anger of the lyrics. So we kind of naturally moved to more Integrity/ All Out War kind of sound.
The best description of us would be a mix of Integrity and Earth Crisis I think. We all love the mid-90's metalcore sound, so that is what we do, mixed with some Metallica harmonics and metal solos.
-give comments:
*New Eden Records
New Eden Records is our label. We are really pleased with them. Our album came out on July 25, and it is everything we could have ever hoped for. The artwork is fantastic (created by Samuel Araya) and the layout was done by New Eden Records. It came out just the way we had in mind, so we are really pleased with them. They will also be releasing an LP version of the cd with two bonus cover songs.
We feel that NER is really on the rise with a number of good releases by some bigger bands such as the new Nuvea Etica cd, the Sunrise discography, the New Winds discography and the new Deadlock cd.
We will be touring the US west coast for two weeks with 7 Generations in October, so we are really happy with New Eden Records and we hope to be able to help them grow with our new cd.
*Netherlands
As you may well know, The Netherlands is a very small country that has occupied the largest Muslim state in the world (Indonesia), as well as a number of islands in the west Indies for a couple of centuries. Because of this occupation and the exploitation that followed it we have become a very rich country. During the colonial era we reclaimed a huge area of land from the sea, which increased the surface of the Netherlands immensely. The Dutch have become so skilled at this that right now nothing in the Netherlands is truly nature. Somewhere in the 19th century the last original forest was cut down, so we live in a 100% artificial landscape
After World War II and the independence of the colonies everything in the Netherlands had to be rebuilt and for this reason we imported a lot of cheap labour from countries such as Morocco and Turkey. These people ended up staying here and everybody was cool with that until now. After the 9-11 bombings a harsh climate against immigrants (especially Muslims) was created. Politicians in Holland even openly treat Muslims as second rate citizens and research has shown that 25% of the Dutch population is racist and 10% even admits this!
In short: we live in an artificial country surrounded by racists and we have a fascist right wing government, so basically everything sucks.
*tattoos
I think tattoos are fucking cool, I have three right now, all of them my own ideas. Two other guys in the band also have tattoos, but the other ones do not. It is totally not important to have tattoos. For me my tattoos are a personal thing and I do not care if people see them and what they think about it. I have my tattoos for me, neither for anyone else, nor to be cool. Nowadays a lot of dumb people get simple tribal tattoos which mean nothing and this causes weird situations:
These fucking ordinary people suddenly think they are your friends because you also have tattoos, whereas you never want ANYTHING to do with them.
"Decent" people think you are either a criminal or a dumb idiot when you have tattoos.
All I can say is: before you get a tattoo, be absolutely sure it is something you really want to walk around with for the rest of your life. And make sure it is something cool, not something picked from a book in 5 minutes.
-What's the message you want to spread with xEOJx? Do you only concentrate
on Veganism and Straight Edge or do you also want to focus on other issues?
The message we seek to confront the world with is one of absolute hatred and contempt. We loathe the weakness of man and this leads to three basic topics of our lyrics: Straight Edge, Veganism and misanthropy.
We are Straight Edge to fight against this corrupt society. A true revolutionary does not intoxicate himself. We despise the weakness of man, always seeking alcohol or drugs to forget about his life. Straight Edge is about controlling your weaknesses and conscious living. This stretches far beyond the basic rules of the Straight Edge as Minor Threat laid them down.
Veganism means that we do not consume any products that come from animals. We do not eat meat, eggs, milk, cheese or honey, because of the way animals are treated in the industry. We also oppose animal testing because we feel that it is wrong to choose a human life over an animal's life. We have chosen this way of living even though it sometimes means that people will not understand us and even mock us. We absolutely believe that this is the right way to live. Western society exploits everything it can get its greedy hands on only to earn more money.
Mankind is killing the earth and every day more people are born. The earth cannot take this pressure but people are too stupid to understand that. It is too late to turn back and undo the damage that man has done. Species that have gone extinct will not come back and ecosystems that have been destroyed can not be saved. The only way left to save the world is the total extinction of mankind. Only then the earth can repair the damage that man has done.
Until now our lyrics dealt with these three subjects: Straight Edge, Veganism and misanthropy, but when we will record a new album I think we will broaden our horizon a bit towards a more environmentalist view; to put more emphasis on the damage that mankind is doing to the world. Also a bit more in-depth Vegan topics can be expected.
-do you see Vegan/Straight Edge as a movement or personal choice?
For everyone in the band Straight Edge was a personal choice, I even believe that no-one in the band really knew each other when they became Straight Edge. Straight Edge is not at all about a gang mentality. Becoming SxE because your friends are is just plain stupid. Straight Edge is something you do for yourself, not for anyone else. Being SxE is my way of freedom, my rebellion against society. People might say SxE is the opposite of freedom because of the "rules" but in my view SxE frees me from the peer pressure of consuming alcohol and drugs and it gives me the freedom to decide to do whatever I want whenever I want. People who let the opportunity of drinking (or not being able to drink) be a serious reason to do or not to do something they want (like driving to a show) are really sad people.
We all feel happy being SxE and we think that other people might also benefit from it, but others might not, so we never force our opinion on SxE on anyone. We do not really care whether someone is SxE or not. So in that respect it is not really a movement.
Veganism on the other hand is not something I would consider to be a personal choice. Of course we have all decided to become Vegan ourselves, but in truth we think that everybody should be Vegan because of the reasons mentioned above. So I would say that you could have a Vegan movement aimed at freedom for all.
I think a movement can be characterized by a common goal the members work towards. Because the Straight Edge scene is so broad I do not think there is a common goal; some people are meat-Edge, some are vegetarian, some are Vegan, some are religious others are a(nti)theist, so a common goal cannot be found. We do not strive for a drug and alcohol free society because most people can not handle this shitty life without the escape of intoxication. We are even in favour of legalization of all drugs, in which the Dutch government is a big step ahead of the rest of the world, which is probably the only thing about this country.
-what does Veganism mean for you personally and the band as well?
Veganism is very important for me personally and for the band as well. It gives me the feeling that I kind of help just a little bit to make the world a better place. We use the band to tell the world about the injustices that occur both in the meat industries and in the connected industries. We hope that some people will learn from what we have to say, and if not, well at least we tried.
-what's the biggest injustice towards animals at the moment?
I think the most important issues at the moment are the large industrialized animal exploiting sectors: factory farming and animal testing. In factory farming animals are put in tiny cages for the fastest and cheapest production of meat or fur. The amount of suffering they go through is unbelievable. Many animals display stereotypical behaviour because of the stress they endure. These animals are then transported in crowded trucks to the slaughterhouse where they are killed. A few of the additional injustices in factory farming are: un-anaesthetisized castration of boars, the shredding of little roosters and the cages mink live in.
In the animal testing laboratories animals are treated terribly as well. Millions of animals are used to test medicines and all kinds of new products on in order to ascertain their safety for humans. This leads to two problems: First, animals are not humans, so due to these experiments, each year hundreds of people world wide die of the side-effects of medicines that were tested on animals. Secondly and more importantly, there is no moral basis to place an animal's life above a human life. How many animals are allowed to die for the profit of a company? Besides, there are too many people in the world anyway.
If these two problems are eradicated I think the rest will follow shortly, such as domestic animal abuse, rooster-fights, bullfights, gall-bladder-tapping of bears etc.
-do you think the world could be changed through veg(etari)an life style?
Oh yes absolutely. For the production of meat in the western world huge areas of arable land are used for the production of cattle feed. If this land were to be used for the production of food there would be no hunger in the world. If people would start caring more about each other and the environment all world problems would be solved. But the truth is that no-one cares and that the capitalistic machine will destroy everything in its path for the profit of a few
-do you support direct action?
We definitely support all activities that will save animals from a life of misery. There are a number of ways to achieve this, some of which may be considered terrorist activities.
The most famous actions are obviously releases of mink and other animals from the fur industries. These actions are considered positive actions by a majority of the general public because they are opposed to the fur industry and basically no animals or humans are harmed during these actions. The most important thing that is achieved by these actions is economical damage, which may in the end force a company to close down.
Other direct actions like arson are also mainly aimed at economical damage and to reach publicity.
However, one should never forget that education is a far more important means of saving animal lives. Most people do not realise the pain and suffering that animals go through before they end up as food on a plate, so it will be best to concentrate on increasing the public awareness regarding the animal industries. Demonstrations against specific companies are probably one of the best ways to reach the general public, right now there are a lot of demonstrations against Thomas Cook Travel agency because they book flights on which wild monkeys are transported from Mauritius to the European animal testing laboratories and there are still a lot of demos against Huntingdon Life Sciences and BPRC, two large laboratories in the UK and the Netherlands respectively.
Since the rise of the right wing governments in Europe there is a lot of negative publicity against animal rights activists. In the Netherlands a right wing politician was killed by a vegan guy in 2002, which led to a lot of publicity for animal rights organisations. Unfortunately most of this publicity was very negative and the spokesmen of the Animal Liberation Front did not do a really good job either. So it was both a storm that went over our heads but that did not hurt us much as well as a missed chance to increase public awareness. The media were more focused on the sensation of these "weird people" than on the actual reasons why they do it.
- Some people think that SxE as an 'exclusive' thing and the purpose of being
SxE is only to be categorized as a 'cool' kid. your comment?
Straight Edge is not about being cool but I can understand that weaker people might feel under pressure to be straight edge because their friends are. In the Netherlands SxE has not been cool for quite a few years now, so it seems that only a few kids have the courage to be Straight Edge these days.
Kids who become SxE in order to be considered cool will be the first to sell out. On the other hand, everyone needs a reason to try out at being straight edge and for some it might work and for some it might not. There is no point in saying stuff like 'If you're not now you never were" or similar elitist bullshit. Straight Edge should be open to all who would like to give it a try. And people who hate sxe are real idiots because they do not have a fucking clue what it is about. These people must be a bunch of arrogant pricks thinking that we would care whether they live or die.
- What's the best and worst thing of being Straight Edge?
The best thing about being Straight Edge is the fact that you never have to think about drinking alcohol. I observe that for a lot of people it is really an issue if the will be able to drink alcohol when they go somewhere. They might even decide not to go to a show or something because they have to drive and thus will not be able to drink. When you are SxE you never have to think about that and that makes life easier. Also the fact that when you come home from a show or going out in general and you are not completely wasted is really great.
The negative side of taking such a clear stance against something that is considered to be normal is that there are always a lot of people who start whining about the fact that you do not drink. They think you are a pussy or stuff like that. And often people just assume that you consume alcohol by using remarks such as "so I guess you will be going to the pub now" and assuming that bands drink a lot when they have to perform, or even giving a tray of beer as a bonus at work. Fucking retards.
- No drugs, no alcohol, no smoke. how about promiscuous sex? some straigt
Edgers don't see this as an important issue in the SxE philosophy.
The situation Ian Mckaye was in when he wrote the lyrics to Out of Step and Straight Edge are absolutely not comparable to what we see here today. He was talking about high school girls losing their virginity at high school parties under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Over here the average age of a hardcore kid is 23. So basically we are talking about two adults having sex in mutual consent.
I personally try to stay out of situations where I have to make the decision of having sex for the sex or leaving everything behind and be frustrated afterwards, because I know that I too can not control myself when push comes to shove. Sex is a primal instinct in contrast to the need for intoxication.
I think promiscuous sex is not nearly as important in being Straight Edge as the no alcohol and drugs stuff. Promiscuous sex is not as easily defined as one might think. For instance is a series of 3 week relationships promiscuous sex? I do not think so. But is it wise? Is it conscious living? Those are the questions you should ask yourself.
We all have our instincts and we need to find ways of dealing with them. It is stupid to deny that we have those instincts.
- What is your opinion on Edge breakers in general?
I do not give a fuck about what people do with their lives. It is completely their own decision. A lot of my friends have broken the Edge and some people have improved on it and some did not. It just saddens me to see them getting fucked up on drugs or alcohol and making an ass out of themselves. But there is nothing I can do about it.
And this is exactly what the bonus track on our cd is about. It deals with the negative connotations people tend to have with SxE.
People think Straight Edge is a stupid trend and that it should not be taken seriously because a lot of people drop out. But that is completely besides the point of being Straight Edge. All of us are Straight Edge because we believe this is the best way for us to live our lives and it has nothing to do with what other people think or do. I am not Vegan Straight Edge to gain respect from other Vegan Straight Edge kids or whatever. I do not give a shit what they think about me. I think this is the best way for me and it might also benefit others (and at least the animals), that is why I bother to spread this message. If people pick it up, that's cool, if they do not… well I hope they at least like the music.
Most people I know have not changed at all since they dropped the Edge so it is ridiculous to exclude them because of that. There are things in life that are much more important.
Someone can be SxE for 3 months, a year or 10 years and then sell out. Everyone will have their own personal reasons for it and who the fuck am I to judge them when I do not even know these people and what they have gone through? It is a really short sighted thing to talk about true till death and to judge SxE (or even Vegan) sell outs.
- Straight Edge has been classified as a gang in some areas and has received
many misrepresentations in the media, what are your thoughts on this?
People who use Straight Edge as a gang are stupid idiots. Straight Edge is about freeing yourself from the addictions of alcohol and drugs and about living a conscious life. It means thinking about what you are doing and about the life society forces you into. Straight Edge is definitely not about forcing your opinions on others. For some reason I always get the impression that it is mainly in the US that these kinds of things happen. Their society is much more based on masculinity and being the toughest, and then young people are much more prone to peer pressure. These kids are looking for a way to fit in and also something to fight against and this easily leads to a gang mentality.
Also something new in the US is a new scene of BBP (Bring Back Prohibition) bands. These bands support the total abolition of alcohol, thus enforcing their opinions on others. We do not support that at all.
The main reasons for these bands are the indirect effects of alcohol, such as drunk driving and causing accidents where innocent people die, but we really do not give a shit. This kind of reasoning can never get in the way of freedom of choice.
- Your band has a strong belief in Vegan Straight Edge philosophy, are you
willing to play or tour with non Vegan Straight Edge bands?
Because Veganism and Straight Edge are so important to us, we really want to reach an audience that is not familiar with these concepts. If we were to tour with other Vegan SxE bands we would most probably be preaching to the converted which is not really why we started this band. We would do it nonetheless, because it is just fucking cool, hahaha. But if we would tour with a band like Ringworm there is a good chance that people would be into our music, but would not be familiar with our message, so that is an audience that is interesting to us.
Generally speaking we would rather tour with non-Vegan Straight Edge bands, but we just take every opportunity to tour and spread our music.
- Your opinion about fashioncore?
I think it is sad to see that in some parts of the scene the way you dress is more important than the music you play and the message you spread. I can not understand why boys would want to wear girls-jeans, shirts that are too tight and studded belts. It seems to me that it is something that has gotten a little out of hand. If someone starts a new style for whatever reason (even if it looks completely insane) there always seem to be some retards that feel the need to also dress exactly like that.
No-one ever said that everyone on a HC show needs to wear camo-shorts and band shirts, but to rebel against this by dressing up like a girl is fucking ridiculous.
It is a weird kind of wanting to look different or something, just like the 17 year old metal-head I saw last week walking around in his long black coat in the blistering sun of 30 degrees.
People do not seem to realise that they can like Bleeding Through and 18 Visions without wanting to look like them. And come on, no-one can deny they look gay.
- Earth Crisis or Integrity?
This is the toughest question ever. This will probably cause a fight within the band or something. I am personally 100% Earth Crisis/Path of Resistance inspired. Those bands really made me think about my life and inspired me to become Straight Edge and vegetarian and eventually Vegan. If I had to choose between both bands I would say Earth Crisis
Our singer on the other hand would say Integrity without a second thought; he even has the Integrity logo tattooed on his chest.
Integrity is of great musical influence to us, because the atmosphere they have is so downright evil. They are a bunch of crazy mother fuckers, which appeals to me. They really sounded like the end of the world.
- Mention five records that really inspired you in making music?
My personal top 5 of records that really inspired me into music in general and that meant a lot to me in my life and the choices I made would be:
- Metallica – Kill em all, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, …And Justice for All
- Integrity – Seasons in the size of days
- Earth Crisis – Gomorrahs season ends
- Trial - Are these our lives
- Slapshot – Step on it, Back on the map, 16 valve hate, Old time hardcore
Typically, if you combine all of these bands, what you get is Eye of judgement.
-are there any good bands from your country that you recommended?
Right now the best bands from Holland are old school bands. My favourites are Restless Youth, who play in the style of the Bad Brains, and Nothing Done, who sound like Negative Approach.
We used to have some great SxE bands here: Manliftingbanner, Mainstrike, Reaching Forward, A Step Apart, but the Edge seems to have gone dull here. Right now we only have Abusive action, Birds of a feather (ex-mainstrike members) and us left.
From Belgium I would recommend Rise and Fall, one of the best HC bands ever and Deadstop, but they also quit.
-future plans, last words and shout outs?
Right now we are planning the US tour with 7 generations and some small European tours for this fall and we have started writing songs for a new album, which we want to record this winter.
We will also be featured on a number of compilation cds: A tribute to integrity (we play Armenian Persecution), a new xCatalystx sampler and a hardcore cookbook.
Thanks a lot for this interview. It is one of the best ones we have done yet.
Finally we would like to apologise for the crimes our ancestors committed in Indonesia during the colonial era and during the independence war (1945-1950). What the Dutch (and other colonial powers) have done in the past can in no way be justified. The fact that the western world is rich and the third world is (still) poor is simply because of the colonial occupation and the exploitation by multinational corporations afterward.
Go Vegan