Now that my Insecurity record has arrived it is a good time to put this interview I did with Alexis online. This is a band that you should check out if you love Youth crew styled hardcore.

Insecurity is a new band from ex members of Harm done, Raw justice and others. What made you create a band in this different style then we recently saw from you. What made you decide to start a new band again? Where do you keep on getting to energy to do hardcore bands?

In fact, Insecurity is pretty different from my previous bands, especially Harm Done but that’s because Powerviolence has never been my area of expertise, neither Regis’, our current drummer who was also Harm Done last drummer. He’s a punk rock kid and I’m definitely a Youth Crew one. Just like our singer Nico and guitar player Kevin are. We all love Youth crew, even though we’re into different waves (from mid 80’s to early 00’s) but that’s something we all share and never really had a chance to play proper youth crew. 

About why starting a new band and keep getting the energy, as far as I’m concerned, I never have enough and always want to start new bands or new projects (in the music area or not). I was expecting to lose interest in playing Hardcore as I would get older but it seems that it’s not ready to happen yet. I even have two new bands in the pipeline either with Regis and Kevin ! 

Let’s introduce the band members. Age, hardcore credentials and can you also tell us your most nerdy hobby?

Nico is now 38, French Rail executive / HR. He’s doing vocals and was previously singing in Angry Vets, Cut Loose and First Failure back in the days. His nerdiest hobby is to listen to The Get Up Kids and he probably runs too much.

Regis is a French teacher, 35 years old and has been killing drums for 20 years now. He plays / played with me in Harm Done, Raw Justice, No Solution (our first youth crew band). He’s also into a surf punk / hardcore band called Sordid Ship and sometimes fills in for Syndrome 81. He’s always counting stairs when using staircases. It has to be an even number. Oh, and first stair left foot and last stair right foot, otherwise it’s wrong. 

Kevin is 30, electrician and plays the guitar. He’s been in Long Way Home lately, a modern hardcore band that just broke up. He loves watching curling.

I’m Alexis, 31 years old and after running Straight & Alert records full time for 6 years I’m now a freelance web developer. I’ve been doing vocals for Harm Done and Raw Justice these last few years and played the guitar in No Solution. My nerdiest hobby at the moment would probably be spending most of my time learning about web developing and playing too much Fifa.

While we are on the topic of French hardcore bands. Can you give your top 5 of French hardcore records? 

That’s not an easy one ! I’m always struggling to find all times favorites so I’ll just go with what comes to my mind now , in no particular order, and that are not that old.  

Syndrome 81 – Beton Nostalgie (this is their full discography, just because every record they did is a banger)

Right For Life – Off the Beaten Track  . They were from my hometown, started back in the 90’s and were part of the KDS crew. This record came out in 2002 and is definitely part of the few records that got me hooked into Hardcore.

Youth Avoiders – Relentless :  They’ve been around for 10 years now and releasing nothing but great records. This is their last one and it’s a real gem.

Short Days – ST LP : guys / girls from the whole Lille crew who have been doing great bands over the past few years, and keep doing new ones. Always pretty 80’s Hardcore influenced.

Worst Doubt – new LP : fuck it, it’s not out yet but IT WILL BE A BANGER. And I had the chance to listen to the rough mix just before sending back this interview. These guys are probably the most talented musicians I know within the hardcore scene and they are just killing it. They only have two demos so far but watch out for their debut LP.

Insecurity plays youthcrew hardcore. But what bands besides Youth of today would you call your main influences? 

As I said before we all love youth crew but dig different waves. It’s sometimes hard to stick to only a few influences but in a nutshell, I would say they’d go from Straight Ahead to True Colors, The First Step, Mindset or Get The Most. It’s definitely fast and angry youth crew.

What is Built for you about? It could be about people coming in our scene and trying to claim it completely for themselves. Or it could be about certain people that you feel are not welcome in our scene. Could you please explain?

Hum actually neither of these. I mean, it was not originally written to talk about people within the Hardcore scene but it could also apply to them. This song is about people trying their hardest to follow the new trend and do what’s cool, with the only goal to get included in some groups / crews of people. I can understand people acting this way back they were teenagers, trying to find their way / who they are / what they like. But unfortunately, it seems like most people keep doing this, even 15 years later to feel / be “accepted” by their peers, either it’s at work, in their social life or within the hardcore scene!

The band name and the songs Willpower and Anxiety seem to deal with depression and struggling against feelings of worthlessness. Is this a theme for Insecurity? 

The band name is an homage to Turning Point, and the song Anxiety was originally called Insecurity but Nico changed it for Anxiety. I would not say depression and this kind of feelings are a theme for Insecurity, like something we want to focus our songs on. BUT since I wrote most of all our lyrics way before the band existed, some are like 4 years old, and I can say these kind of topics (depression, anxiety, worthlessness) have been around me for the past few years, it happens to deal with that. It was not always related to me personally, but it was sometimes friends or family who were dealing with that. As I’m usually putting words down on paper when things bother me / piss me off they tend not to be very positive and focused on the aforementioned themes.

Songs like Random violence, It won’t last and to a lesser extent also Constant anger seem to deal with the current resurgence of hate, phobia’s, racism and the violence both in language and in execution that follows from that. Do you feel that we as a society are regressing? I had the feeling in the end of the nineties that all our raging was actually changing the mainstream society for the better. But in the last few years it seems like we fell all the way back to the 50’s

Yeah we are definitely facing hard times these days. With all these far right / racist political parties getting more support at every election, people not hiding anymore to speak up their racist / nationalist opinions it feels we are definitely not going in the right direction.

I can’t really talk about the 90’s as I was born in 1988, so my vision on this decade may be biased by my young age and inability to understand what was going on at that time, but yeah it really feels like we’ve taken a few steps back on some social issues. Or maybe the gap is getting wider between those who were hiding / ashamed to stand up for who they were back in the days, and the ones who were also afraid to discriminate them with no shame. Anyway, hate is everywhere and I don’t think it’s going to get any better.

Insecurity was signed and ready to release a 7” before even one show was played. How did this come to pass?

Being said like that it can sound odd in fact but I’ve known Robert from Refuse records for a long time now. I was working with him and trading records when I was still running Straight & Alert records and even co-release a 7”. Refuse was the very first label we thought about when the time to find one came and we were stoked he agreed to put our record out! We actually played one show before we went into studio. We wondered if we should first record a demo tape or go for a 7” directly but since we loved the recordings we decided to go for a record as a first release. 

Besides releasing a 7”, what is in the future for Insecurity?

We’re going to play a few shows in November, including 3 with Vitamin X along the French west coast and both Harm Done last shows. Then we’re playing a Euro tour for spring and probably another one for summer 2020. At the moment we’re waiting for the 7” to be out and start playing shows to promote it but I can already tell you we’ll be writing news songs for a new record pretty soon. Our guitar player is a riff machine, we even have to stop him from writing at the moment to avoid having new songs too early and remove some “old” ones from our set!

What other bands should we be keeping an eye on?

I already talked about it but everyone please do yourself a favor and check out / keep an eye on Worst Doubt. If you are into the Everybody Gets hurt, early Trapped Under Ice, Kickback vibe, you will not be disappointed. 

Another new band I’m really excited about is Instructor from Belgium. Their demo on Quality Control records blew me away. The sound, the riff, the groove: everything feels like it’s been recorded in NEW YORK in the mid 80’s. I’m excited I’m about to see them at the Damage Is Done fest in London in November.

Then, I’m sure anyone who’s into hardcore and hasn’t been living under a rock for the past 2/3 years know them but I have to mention Big Cheese from UK. They are my current favorite European Hardcore band. Again, some awesome Killing Time / Raw Deal / Breakdown / Outburst NYHC, on Quality Control records!

Last but not least I have two new bands that are just starting. One I’m playing bass for, it seems we’ll be playing some 80’s hardcore, we just found a singer so it’s gonna define our direction as a band now. We don’t have a name yet though.

The other thing I’ve been involved in is my solo project called Schizoid. I’ve always admired people who were doing everything by themselves (like Tom with Violent Reaction at the beginning) and wanted to try it too, so I wrote and recorded everything by myself and it’s been fun. I’ve got a 5 track EP ready and recorded since November 2018 but never finished to mix it, I need to work on that but it’s not easy as it’s my first try. However, I eventually got two live line ups to play these songs live so it’s going to nudge me to eventually put this out! Music wise it’s somewhere between No Tolerance, The Flex and Boston Strangler maybe? It’s definitely angry, fast and ignorant.

Last words

My usual / cliché last words:  GET INVOLVED. Start a band, book a show, start a label, put out a fanzine, whatever but DO SOMETHING. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re not good enough, you’ll get better at it by doing, not waiting. There is nothing but great things to experience doing all of this. Getting involved offered the chance to travel the world, have a sick job for 6 years, find the love of my live and meet extraordinary people, including a good bunch that I’m glad to call my best friends. Don’t wait for others to do something for you, do it yourself. 

Oh, and go vegan. It’s just a matter of time before everyone has to if we don’t want to die sooner than expected. XXX