THROUGH THE HOOPS WITH G.B.H.
What do Charles Manson and G.B.H. have in common? His eyes are on the cover of their new LP, Midnight Madness And Beyond. Charming. And what does “G.B.H.” stand for? Grievious Bodily Harm. Nice. I was anxiously awaiting my meeting with the band before their show at the Ritz.
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THROUGH THE HOOPS WITH G.B.H.
Bullets
Alison Aquino
What do Charles Manson and G.B.H. have in common? His eyes are on the cover of their new LP, Midnight Madness And Beyond.
Charming.
And what does “G.B.H.” stand for?
Grievious Bodily Harm.
Nice.
I was anxiously awaiting my meeting with the band before their show at the Ritz. Chatting with a hardcore band is one of the cooler things in life. And every night should have been this cool. Breezy Saturday evening in the Village, scattered mohawked teens hanging out in front of the hall, trading rumors and cigarettes, waiting quietly for the infamous Rock Hotel show. Treading a path through them, I made my way to the dressing room.
Hello, Prototypical Hardcore Band.
In the world of hardcore, G.B.H. are nobility. They’re so cool that they don’t even have last names. Colin, with the blond spikes, sings; Kai, with the pierced nose, plays drums; Jock, with the spiderweb tattoo, plays guitar; and lastly, the mohawked Ross plays bass. Kai is the only native German in the band; the others are from Birmingham, England. Kai replaced Wilf, who had decided to forgo hardcore in order to marry and live on a farm in Texas.
G.B.H. have been around since 1980, and a few factors that might have contributed to their longevity are that they all wear the same type of shoes (combat boots—essential) and that they all groove on DOA, Black Flag, and the Dead Kennedys. So far, so good.
Except, well, they all have the same personality.
Excuse me, attitude. In other words, they ain’t big on chit-chat.
So I delved into the Emergency Easy Questions When One Is Faced With a Less Than Communicative Band That Also Looks Intimidating. Like: how’d the band meet?
Colin is not amused. “We were playing in the same clubs.”
How old is the band?
“Early 20s. We’re hardcore veterans.”
Why hardcore?
“We don’t consider ourselves a hardcore band.”
Contradictions, anyone?
Is it easy to get shows despite those evil rumors about hell-raising hardcore bands?
“We can’t get gigs. There are no venues. We’re a band that burns money for the promoters. That’s their attitude toward us. When people hear the name G.B.H., they immediately go back. Until they put us on once, and then they say, ‘If I’d known you were like this, I would’ve put you on years ago.’ We have energetic crowds. They don’t cause trouble.”
What about the record situation?
“If a record company put a million cats on a stage,” says Ross, “they’d sell it. It depends on how much work a record company puts in.”
Your tunes?
“Every day we learn something new. The style of music’s not the same. If you listen to the first album and then the last, you’ll notice differences.” That is, if you’re a member of G.B.H. For those not familiar with the entire G.B.H. catalog, here are their three LPs: City Baby Attacked By Rats, City Baby’s Revenge, and the aforementioned latest album.
Can you see the primarily underground hardcore scene becoming standard?
"I think,” says Colin, “there’ll be more of a crossover.”
So what’s G.B.H.’s goal? Why play a virtually non-commercial music for years?
“We play music primarily for ourselves. We never think of the maximum audience we can reach.”
The hardcore scene isn’t known for its permanence. Most bands have released a couple albums, then split. Only a few have been together for years. The Circle Jerks and the DK’s are like the Stones and the Kinks of hardcore. What does Colin think of the lack of stability in the scene?
“For every band that dies, two more start. It never stops. Why should there be a set number of bands? It’s the attitude. If they’re in it for the wrong reasons, they can’t take it.”
A couple more interesting G.B.H. facts: the band boasts an ex-jeweler and an exjanitor. They like to read and watch TV when they’re not playing.
They have the attitude, even if they don’t have the offstage electricity. They save their energy for their shows. And the albums. Any band that has the sense to name a song "Guns And Guitars” deserves credit for coolness. And they had the audience double-backflipping off the stage, something you won’t see at your average Dokken show. So check them out—someday you can say that one of the coolest rock bands you knew did indeed wear gold hoops in their noses.
