No exceptions is a band I stumbled upon a while back. I even did a review of their demo on my previous blog. But I still felt that they are criminally underrated and needed some more exposure. So take your time and read this interview I did with their drummer Brian. And afterwards, make sure to check out the bandcamp page linked on the bottom of this page
Can you introduce the band members? What is their age and their favorite book?
Brett is 39. He plays bass and he likes Body of Secrets by James Banford and On The Trail of Assassins by Jim Garrison. Preston11 is on vocals. He’s 34 and one of his favorite books is Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. I’m Brian and I play drums. I’m 39 years old and I don’t read much because I’m a meat head and spend my free time in the gym. But I like fantasy novels like lord of the rings and Harry Potter. RD plays guitar. He’s 39 and doesn’t read because he’s too busy playing with Pepsi stuff all day
If you spend all your time at the gym, we need to know your PR dead lift. 🙂
Haha Only 542 pounds. I train for aesthetics more than strength
From the band name I can deduce that Floorpunch is a big influence. What other bands would you cite as influences? Are there any ex bands worth mentioning.
Yeah Floorpunch is definitely a big one for all of us. As for others, I’d say the stuff we’ve done so far has elements of Chain of strength, Carry on, Count me out, No tolerance. Those are bands I definitely ripped off when writing the demo lol. As for ex bands, we’ve all been in a bunch. The notable ones I think were Crunch time, Right brigade, Generations, and Iron edge
Why did you decide to start a youth crew SXE band in this day and age?
It’s the style we all love the most so it’s just what naturally happened. Definitely not what most bands are doing right now, which might be why we haven’t gotten many shows yet haha
Hardcore seems to thrive on reunion shows and actual reunions of big bands that did split up a while ago and came back. A lot of times they don’t even hold the same ideals anymore. What is your stand on that? On a related note, when there is new bands, it seems to be mostly people of our age as well? Where are all the young kids?
I go see the reunion bands because I still love the songs. I don’t concern myself too much with their current ideals. If my ideals match the ideals they had when they wrote those songs then that’s good enough for me. I know a lot of people think it’s lame and they’re just trying to grab that cash while they can. I totally understand that but I’d rather just enjoy bands I like instead of wasting energy thinking about it as anything deeper than that. As for newer bands, speaking for the Boston scene it’s actually mostly younger kids right now. Most of the good current bands have members in their 20s. Old guy bands like us don’t get much attention around here at all. It seems like if you aren’t a young band, you get ignored. That kinda bums me out because I love hardcore as much now as I did when I was 16. But I can’t knock any of the other bands at all. I love so many current bands and we have a bunch of great ones here in Boston/ MA. They’re good guys too. Most of the younger people in the scene here are super nice and all support each other.
Good to hear, over here in Belgium it seems to be mostly old people like me 🙂 You already hinted on the answer to this question but her it goes: I thought your demo was the best demo of 2018. But how was the overall reception?
Wow thank you so much! We were all pretty happy with the way it came out but the overall reception wasn’t anything to get excited about. The people who listened to it all said they thought it was good but you never really know. We only played 3 shows so far and haven’t sold many tapes. We just play because we love hardcore so it doesn’t matter if we are “successful” or whatever. We definitely want to play more shows though and we hope to do a 7” if we can find a label that would want to put it out.
Lyrically you seem to move away a bit from the hardcore clichés. Was this intentional or just what happened to come out?
Yes definitely intentional. Preston wrote all the lyrics and he wanted to try to say more than just the same old stuff
If I understand the song, Not just Drugs correctly you are doing a call for the SXE scene to open their eyes to the world around them. Can you elaborate a bit more about this song.
These are Preston’s thoughts on that:
majority of hardcore songs take on a very accusatory and divisive point of view that I want to avoid whenever possible. There are certainly many people in this world that deserve to be blamed and shamed (which is something I certainly do in “Sicario“), but I feel that consistently taking such an approach to communication is ultimately counterproductive in a scene that should be fostering progression. As a result, all of my lyrics for No Exceptions thus far have their genesis within my own self reflections. What are the things that I struggle with? What are the things that I find value in? Since No Exceptions is a straight edge band, there was no doubt that we wanted to represent that in our contribution to the genre. However, I realized that many straight edge songs are perhaps the most obvious examples of being accusatory and divisive (I’m more edge than you, you are a loser for breaking edge, etc). Again, this is something I wanted to avoid, so I stopped to reflect on what Straight Edge meant to me personally. For me, I have always seen straight edge as more than three rules to follow so that I can be part of some kind of elite club. When I first got into Straight Edge, I remember hearing an interview with Karl from Earth Crisis where he described straight Edge as a “vehicle for self progression.” That always stuck with me. There is also an old radio interview with Youth of Today where they talk about how Straight Edge doesn’t have a lot of value if you’re still an asshole to people. These kinds of insights have always made me think about myself and my own actions and attitudes in the context of choosing to be straight edge. I look back at times in my life where simply being “poison free” didn’t mean a whole lot because I was spreading so much poisonous energy to the world around me by being such a toxic person. Or times when I prioritized things over people, or when I may have followed some kind of ideology without question. These are not things that I am proud of and certainly not things that I see as consistent with the values and intentions of straight edge. As I get older, I recognize more and more that Straight Edge should be a beginning, not an ending. If the philosophy is to free yourself from the damaging constraints of drugs, alcohol and promiscuity, then shouldn’t that approach be taken with all things in life? Society is full of all kinds of groups, corporations, religions, politicians and others that are all trying to lead us down the path to conformity in order to advance their own agendas, almost always to our own personal detriment. We surrender our minds, hearts and money to these insidious factions all the time, in the vain quest for elusive fulfillment. Straight Edge for me has always been about stepping back and evaluating my choices and questioning what I am being told and sold. It is about piercing the veil of illusion, not adding more layers, so that I can use that clarity and perspective to live the fullest and most authentic existence that I can. “Not Just Drugs” is not a song about straight edge hierarchy but one that encourages self reflection and reassessment. It is a song where I am speaking to myself and others that claim Straight Edge, saying that I can do better, that we all can do better. That we cannot make such a bold choice that has taken us this only to be fall victim to a society that wants us to fail, that wants our foundation to collapse, so that we fit into their mold. This is a constant daily battle, one that I don’t always win, but with the insight that straight edge has given me that refusal is an option, I am always going to try.
(A small injection from RD)
Also, RD has decided his favorite book is actually The things they carried by Tim O’Brien
How important is it for No exceptions to give a positive message with the music?
It’s funny because the members of the band as individuals don’t exactly have the most positive personalities haha but I definitely think as a band playing this style we want to get across a positive message for the most part. The world can be a very negative place so I think it’s important to try to put some positive energy out there.
Thanks, any last words
Thanks for the interview! Be on the lookout for us to play some shows and hopefully put out more music!
All pictures by Todd Pollock.
Prophecy 