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Email to friend Blaine Cook began his career as the lead yowler in Seattle hardcore punk band The Fartz, then moved onto Seattle thrashcore band The Accused, then reunited with The Fartz for two albums, and then again reunited with The Accused this year to release the new CD Oh Martha!. I figured I'd better catch him before he returns to The Fartz, and luckily he agreed to a telephone interview. Unfortunately he was speaking quietly and my phone is one of Edison's original models, so official markprindle.com interview transcriber Jim Laakso had a HELL of a time figuring out what the heck Mr. Cook was saying. He gave it 'that old college try' though, so I paid him his $15. Now he can go back to scrubbing underneath the sink until another interview rolls around. As it is, please do enjoy as much of the interview as Ol' Laaky was able to interpret. And have a good day! My questions are in bold print; Blaine's answers are nothing of the sort.
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Hello?
Blaine? Hey, Mark Prindle.
Mark, what’s going on?
Nothing.
That’s right, it’s Thursday! Aaaah jeez.
Are you available or no? We can reschedule if you’re busy.
No, it’s cool. I wrote it on the calendar and everything.
What are you up to? What’re you doing?
Right now I’ve got my kid. My friend Steve just showed up, and I’ve got something crazy going on out here behind my house so I have to check it out and see if they need anything.
I hear noises.
I don’t know...I thought I heard...Some people walked by and I thought I heard this lady saying ‘Somebody help me.’
Uh oh.
I saw a guy over there kind of hunched over for a couple of minutes shuffling around with some shit.
Ew. How old is your son?
Well, it’s my daughter. She’s nine.
Oh, wow. I didn’t know you’d been a father for so long. What do you do for a living? Are you a teacher?
I work in a Head Start program. It’s a federally-funded child program for low-income families.
How long have you done that?
I’ve been at the place I’m working at now for six years, but I’ve been working with kids for like fifteen years.
What got you interested in that?
It’s kind of something I always wanted to do. A lot of people in my family are teachers. I was kind of an underachiever, so I wasn’t really able to go through with the whole teaching certificate and everything, so the requirements are a little slimmer for working with these kids. The requirements are a little slimmer and the bureaucracy is a lot slimmer.
So what do you do? I mean, what do you every day, what do you do with the kids? What kind of stuff?
It’s kind of like kindergarten preparedness. The agency that I work for - we serve what they used to call the projects, but now in Seattle they call them the Garden Community. So we serve the Garden Community and we work very closely with immigrant refugee families from Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. So it’s just kind of like - we work with the children and teach them what it’s going to be like in kindergarten. And we meet with their families four times a year. Our program just started. We go into the homes and we try to get to know the parents and a little bit about the kids.
Do you ever have to deal with problem situations in families?
Oh yeah.
Oh no.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Problem situations, you know --different cultures, they raise children differently.
Do you ever hear from kids that you worked with years earlier? Or do they remember? I guess they were pretty young.
They were pretty young. When they’re that age they don’t remember.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, there was a program there for kids that’s actually really close to my house, so I walk up there and there are a lot of kids that are still here in the neighborhood, so I have seen some of the kids that I worked with years ago.
They let you get the job with your old long hair, or is this after you cut your hair?
No, I had long hair when I started. They knew I was in a band and everything.
Do you think you’re going to have any more kids yourself?
No, we’re only having one.
Oh. okay. That’s enough?
Yeah.
Has she heard your music?
Oh yeah, yeah.
Is she old enough to appreciate that noisy stuff?
She doesn’t like it. She was only two years old the first time that she saw us play.
Two years old!?
Yeah. And it was really cool because it was a sold out show and we were playing with Poison Idea. We played and then my wife showed up with my daughter and the crowd parted so they could come up and go backstage.
Does it freak your daughter out the way you sing?
Um, I think it scares her.
Oh.
Yeah, it’s a little too loud for her.
What kind of music does she like?
I'm embarrassed to say this, but (sigh) somehow she's gotten really into modern country.
How did that happen?!
I don’t know. She’s always listening to the radio. I don't even know who these people are that she's into, but she always recognizes the songs that she hears on the radio.
Oh no!
Yeah. I'm trying to get her into the Clash and the Ramones but I'm not having much luck yet.
The Ramones - that’s a good entryway into what you do.
Yeah. Yeah.
That’s how I got into it. It started with the Ramones. I’ve actually been a fan of yours since I got the Return of Martha Splatterhead cassette for Christmas, 1989.
Wow! So you've been a fan for a long time.
Yeah. I went out and got the rest of course, then I went back and got the Fartz stuff. I saw in an interview that I just read that one of your favorites is one that I didn’t like as much as you I guess: Grinning Like an Undertaker.
Mm hmm.
That’s just, I don’t know. I really like all your other ones, and that one’s not BAD; it’s just not exactly my taste. But I really like all your other stuff a lot, although I still have not gotten "Hymns For the Deranged." (note: I have now - see my review!)
Yeah, that’s a tough one to get.
Are those songs that are from Grinning Like an Undertaker?
Those were four songs that we kind of recorded as a demo. We did that EP right after we got dropped from Combat.
Why did you get dropped?
Combat was a weird company. I'm not sure how much they were actually into the bands they signed. Like, they’d sign bands, and with each record your advance would get a little bit smaller. I don’t remember what the problem was, but Combat Records just didn't want to put out our stuff anymore. They didn’t have the money, I guess.
And do you think that stuff is ever going to be back in print? People have e-mailed me saying, “Where did you buy these records?! I can’t find them anywhere!”
Yeah, well, you know, it’s a complicated thing in that all the Combat/Relativity stuff was taken over by Sony, so you know…
Oof.
If we knew somebody that knew somebody there, it wouldn’t be that difficult. But otherwise, you’re talking about having to hire an attorney and put thousands of dollars into it. It’s really one of those things where you have to know somebody who knows somebody, and I have tried contacting Sony, but to no avail. We've actually been corresponding with people who are interested re-releasing the old stuff. Like Relapse has expressed interest in re-releasing that stuff, so we had them get in touch with Sony. And apparently Sony told them that they would sell them the catalog, but it would be $5,000 per song.
Per song?! Ow! That’s terrible!
Yeah.
So they’re just not going to do anything with it?
Man, that’s how it works, you know? You just don’t know these things when you sign these contracts when you’re young. You don’t understand. Kids don’t really understand how things work.
Yeah. So which ones do you own the rights to?
None of them. None.
Not even the new one?
Oh, the new one we do, yeah.
The new one, but not the Nastymix one?
Yeah.
Wow.
It’s a crazy thing.
So could anything happen if Sony finds out that you included some re-recorded Return Of Martha Splatterhead songs as bonus tracks on this new one? Or no?
That would kind of be a sticky thing, because they’re re-recorded and... I don't know.
Yeah, I think that’s what Suicidal Tendencies did to get back their songs. I don’t know. And the Dwarves, too. They said they wanted to get their rights back for their songs so they re-recorded them or something.
Yeah, you can do that. But I think a lot of times if you’re re-recording you’re changing the vibe.
Yeah.
You can't really recapture what you sounded like when you were young and mad.
Well yeah, I can see it with the new record. You can tell that you guys aren’t as insanely young and crazy as The Return of Martha Splatterhead. But it’s still nice to hear the songs again.
Yeah. Well, you know, the recording techniques have changed. Back then you try to go to the studio and play things like that, they’re freaking out and going, “What is this shit?” Now it’s kind of the norm to be able to record something like that. Back then it was real difficult to find someone to work with who had any clue how to record aggressive music.
Were there other bands doing that sort of mixture of gore and humor, yet also catchy thrash all in the same place when you started - when you joined the Accused? Because I know that later there was Cannibal Corpse and things like that, but that’s not the same.
No, I don’t think so either. I’m sure there were other bands doing that though, definitely.
But no one that got records out or anything?
I’m sure they did, but maybe they just didn’t get the little recognition we got.
What was your best selling one? Do you know?
Probably Martha Splatterhead's Maddest Stories Ever Told.
My wife grew up listening to the same sort of music I did, more on the punk and goth side though, but when I told her I was interviewing you she sang, “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.” She knows that one.
Heh. That's a classic!
Do you still watch a lot of the old grindhouse horror movies and stuff?
Not as much as I used to.
Because you have a daughter? Or just because you’re busy?
Just because I’m busy. And my wife is home a lot, and she's not into that stuff at all.
Oh.
Actually, my kid and I are starting to watch some of the horror stuff, and she’s into that.
What are some of your favorites of those?
Oh, all the standards. The first couple of Zombie movies. The third one is all right, not my favorite. There are just so many. I could say a few more that stand out. The Undertaker And His Friends is always a favorite.
Do you like a lot of that crazy Italian stuff?
Yeah. I like a lot of that.
I just recently, maybe about two years ago, got into that stuff and started reading all those books, Mondo Macabre and all those… It’s fun. Lots of fun. Have you seen I Eat Your Skin, where the kid doses the Satanic group with rabies?
I don’t believe that I saw I Eat Your Skin.
Oh, that reminds me. I got into that stuff at the same time I got into Something Weird stuff. Now, how did you end up getting an Accused DVD released through Something Weird?
We've known the guy that runs Something Weird for a long time. He's one of those huge collectors that you always run into when you go to toy shows and stuff.
That’s really cool. That’s really not normally the kind of thing they do.
Well, actually we put it together. That took us, I don’t know, we probably had 50 or 60 hours of footage to dig through. We had to go through all the tapes and then put it all together. So yeah, he put it out. I don’t know if it was necessarily the best thing we could have done, because they basically operate like the old-time tape traders. You put in an order for one of these tapes, and then they make it for you right then. It's not like they make 1,000 copies or something.
Oh, OK.
So we did it with him, and I just think that we probably could’ve gotten a lot more exposure if we had gone through a different company.
Who do you think you would have gone to? Like MVD or something?
I don’t know. The key thing is that the way that they operate, they’re not really able to get the DVD out there in front of people. If there’s a record store or distributor that wants to buy a hundred copies, Something Weird isn't really set up to do that.
Yeah, I guess they have some deal with another company for those two-fer DVDs that they put out.
Right.
Yeah, those are the only ones that I ever see.
Right.
So you had the Fartz, the Accused, and then the Fartz again, and now the Accused again. What’s goin’ on?
Well, the Fartz were going strong and then we did a show and a couple of weeks later our bass player called up - it was actually the bass player Steve and myself, we’re the original members - and we had Alex, the bass player from The Accused playing guitar parts. And then Steve called us up and said that he had cut his thumb, and from the way that he was talking it sounded like it was a real serious injury. So a couple months passed and we had passed up a lot of different opportunities, and when he finally came back to practice, the injury wasn’t really all that great. And, I don’t know, he just started blowing off practice and not showing up, and he just called me up one day and said, “You know, I’m done.” And that was pretty much it. It really threw me for a loop.
That’s weird.
Yeah.
Was that the band that that Guns 'N Roses guy was in for a while?
Yeah, Duff. Near the tail-end of the band, he was our drummer for a while. Not too long, maybe six months. We played live with him once as the Fartz, then we changed our name to Ten Minute Warning and he switched over to second guitar.
Ten Minute Warning? Do you remember putting anything out under that name?
Not with me in the band. Yeah, they kicked me out shortly thereafter.
They kicked you out?
Yep.
Why? They wanted a different voice, or was it a personality thing?
Yeah, they wanted a different voice. So they played around, they were kind of a party kind of a deal. Yeah, they played around for quite a while with a number of lineup changes. And actually Duff wasn’t in the band after just a little while. He moved down to LA. Then they broke up, and they actually got back together again seven or eight years ago and they put out another record.
Did they change their sound when you left?
I guess they did.
Now, I’ve got to admit, until I really started looking through your website last night I had no idea that the Accused put out a record before you were in the band. I knew they had another singer, but I didn’t know anything came out.
Yeah, actually one of the first shows they ever did was with the Fartz.
Oh! On that first record were they just like a normal hardcore band, or what?
God, they were kind of like…yeah, kind of that generic brand of hardcore that was around at that point in time. Yeah, nothing that was really stand-out-ish.
And then when you joined, what prompted such a change? Was it you bringing in the new ideas, or just what the Fartz were doing really?
Actually, even The Fartz were starting to take on that kind of metal edge, because with Iron Maiden and Motorhead kind of being introduced in that 1982, 1983 period, we were really digging those sounds. And then I think that by the time I joined the Accused, that was about the time that Metallica and Anthrax and Exodus and that kind of stuff was coming out. And that was the time Tom was really getting into the metal, and taking on that metal edge.
As you went from record to record, on each record were you purposely trying different things? Because they do all sound kind of different. I mean, you can always tell it’s the Accused, but none of them sound like each other to me. More Fun Than an Open Casket Funeral seems tighter, like tighter, more rigid Metallica-type metal -- though not mixed like Metallica-type metal. And The Maddest Stories Ever Told, there are a lot of these sudden, jarring drum-stops all the time. And then the Splatter Rock album almost seems like, kind of, not progressive metal, but it’s definitely… That’s the one, as much as I like it, it took me like maybe eight listens before I could remember how any of the songs went. Because they weren’t just straightforward like your ones before, they kind of… I don’t know. Were you purposely trying different things on each one?
I don’t know if we were doing it purposefully or not. I think that we were just… We never felt that we were trapped by a certain sound, so if somebody had an idea, we would do it no matter what it was. We were a band that pretty much everything that’s recorded, that’s all we had. We weren’t a band that would get ready to do a record and we had 30 songs from which we’d pick out the best 10. When we did a record, everything that we did that was it. Any idea was a good idea.
Are you happy with all of them?
Yes, I am.
Very good.
In retrospective, you’d like to change one thing or another, but I still listen to them now and there’s something cool about all of them. Like the Splatter Rock record. I can listen to that now and I can appreciate it. There’s really not a whole lot of bad songs on that record.
Did you not like it at the time?
Oh, there was so much bad stuff going on with the band. We brought up our buddy who played drums for Poison Idea to produce it, but unfortunately he had a bad drug and alcohol problem at the time. He didn’t take the job as seriously as he probably should have, and the mix suffers.
Oh, like how? That's not something that I’ve noted.
Like the drums. There’s stuff with the drums where at times it almost sounds like the snare is missing a beat. Like there’s a weird gate on it or something.
Oh! I’ll have to listen to it again. I didn’t catch any of that. Who is your favorite producer you worked with?
Well of course the most famous one we worked with was Jack Endino and that was a lot of fun.
I didn’t even check this area code that I dialed. Are you still in the Seattle area?
I’m still in Seattle.
Did you follow the whole grunge thing? Were you into any of that?
No, I didn’t follow it. The whole grunge thing, in my opinion -- at that point in time, 'all ages' shows were pretty much banned in Seattle. So the grunge thing, I feel, kind of came from a bar thing, over-21. That’s how a lot of those bands got started. When the Accused were playing, right before that time, we couldn’t play any all-ages shows in Seattle. They had banned them.
Why did they do that? Because they wanted to serve alcohol and you couldn’t with kids there, or what?
There was some crazy teen dance ordinance that stemmed from some shootings at a couple of these dance clubs that were around back then. There was really a thriving all-ages scene in Seattle up until probably 1985 or the very beginning of 1986. Then they banned them.
Who were the other good bands in that period that you liked?
Gosh, let's see -- The Melvins of course were a good band.
Is it true that Metal Church was originally good?
Ha!
I read that somewhere, and I was like, “Seriously? They were?”
You know what, I never liked Metal Church myself. The only good thing about Metal Church was that Kurdt Vanderhoof, the guitar player, used to go by the name “Blobbo” when he was the bass player for an early Seattle punk band called The Lewd.
Oh, The Lewd?!? I have their…what is it? “Kill…”
Kill Yourself, yeah.
Yeah, I’ve got that Kill Yourself Again or something, that double album. That’s good stuff!
Yeah. He was one of the original members of The Lewd.
Blobbo? Ha!
He went by “Blobbo” at that point in time.
That’s nice. Hey, I didn’t compare these two documents. I was reading one of Tommy’s old notes on your site last night and he mentioned the Archive Tapes. Is that the DVD, or something different?
That was something different. We had a couple other projects going on that just never came to fruition.
Oh, was that going to be a CD or something?
Yeah. It was. Back when we were touring, we had something called the Archive CD. Thirty-eight songs. It was early Accused, heavy metal stuff from that time, we had gone and had that put back together and were going to put it out on CD.
Is it live stuff, or stuff from the first records, or -
It’s live, studio, rehearsals, basement tapes.
Oh wow. I also got that Accused 7” tribute, that thing. That’s cool.
Yeah, I thought that was really great.
Were you honored when they asked you if they could do that?
Yeah, actually Paul that did that - Paul at that label - before he did the tribute thing, he actually did an Accused single.
Which one?
"Paint it Red" is what it was called. It was a live track and then a studio version of that song "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones.
Oh, OK. So, is this Accused reunion going to continue? Do you think there might be another album in a few years?
Well, right now things really aren’t too good in the Accused camp, unfortunately.
How come?
Well, I’m really going to be diplomatic. It’d be best for me not to really say anything about it.
Oh, I see.
I can say things off the record if you’re not going to print it.
Okay, I won’t. Whatever you say here I won’t put in. In fact, I’ll turn the tape off.
(*FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER*)
(chuckling nervously) So!
Yeah.
Uhhhhh. Hmm. If anything should ever happen to the Accused, do you think you would maybe form a new band?
Well, for sure.
Are there people you’re playing with now that you could maybe play in a new band with if you guys ever broke up?
Yeah, Alex and I have been talking. Because Alex is actually a really, really kickass guitar player.
Oh!
Yeah. He’s a really great guitar player. He actually went on and did a band with Josh, the guy that did the drumming on Grinning Like an Undertaker. They had a band for a few years called the Hot Rod Lunatics that Alex played guitar on and Josh was actually singing on. Yeah, he’s a really great guitar player. We’re hoping to do something with him playing guitar.
Oh, that would be cool.
Yeah.
It surely can’t be good for your throat to sing like that, can it? Does it hurt?
It hurts if I don’t practice. If I practice, and I’m really conscious about my breathing and everything, then I’m OK. But if I’m not practicing and then I play live and I’m getting all excited and I’m unfocused and I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing, then yeah, it hurts.
How did you choose that particular style of vocalizing? Because you don’t sound like that in real life.
I think that just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Ha!
I don’t know. I started doing hardcore punk, and I knew nothing could be melodic about it. Screaming was just what I thought you were supposed to do. Because at that point in time, the whole rock/hardcore thing was so anti-rock that it would be really frowned upon to have melodic vocals in there.
To me, you’ve always sounded like a hysterical victim, like someone who’s about to be killed.
Ha!
That’s what it sounds like! You don’t sound like an aggressor, like Slayer or something; you just sound like you’re terrified. Especially when you sing things like, 'They’re cutting me open -- BUT I'M NOT DEAD!!!'”
Yeah. That’s good! I’ve never heard anyone say that before. I kind of like that.
That’s what it sounds like to me. It always has. So on this new record, let’s see… We have "Fast Zombies Rule"…
Mmm hmm.
Hey, there have been a bunch of those movies lately, haven’t there?
Yeah. Actually we took that - "Fast Zombies Rule" - because on…I can’t remember which one of our old LPs, I think it’s More Fun, but you know how people could just scratch stuff in the matrix of an LP?
Yeah.
Well we had that scratched on one of the matrices of one of our records, “Fast Zombies Rule.” So that’s where we… we just kind of brought that back. Now fast zombies seem to be the cool thing.
So timely. What old movies are they fast in? I guess they’re fast in several.
There are fast zombies in - oh, what's the name of it. Hang on, I have it right here. It's.... City Of The Walking Dead.
I've seen that one!
Those are some fast zombies.
That’s the one where at the ending it says “The Nightmare Becomes Reality!"
It might; I don’t know. I know they’ve got knives and the airplane lands and everyone jumps out of the airplane.
Yeah, that’s it. They were fast in that one.
Yes, they were.
I liked that one. I remember actually when I was watching that, I was thinking, “Oh, I thought these fast zombies were a new development.”
And then even like Zombie 3 or Zombie 4 they start to get pretty fast also.
That’s pretty scary. Did you see the remake of Dawn of the Dead?
Yeah.
I liked it!
Yeah, so did I.
Especially the first 15 minutes, they were insane.
Yeah.
So which of these new songs… Is "Crapassreality" about an actual person?
Yes, it is.
What was the person doing? Putting you down on the Internet?
There was somebody that got on our website, got on our chat board, and started talking all this shit about us. The people that are on our chat boards -- I don’t see chat boards; I don’t know what they’re like -- but ours is a small board. People are just talking and carrying on and there’s nothing like Internet trolls getting on there and saying stupid stuff. This person just got on there and started talking all this shit, and whoever they were, they felt bad about it and they ended up writing to us wanting us to remove that thread and they even offered us money to take that off, even though they never actually confessed who they were.
They felt bad about it? Or -
Yeah, they felt bad about it, whoever it was. Somebody that was going to NA or AA that wasn’t supposed to be doing any drinking or any drugs and they relapsed or whatever and got all crazy and then realized what they had done.
Ha! And then "13 Letters" about child molesters -- have you had to deal with any of that at your job?
No, I have not.
Oh, thank goodness.
Yeah, that's something that I haven't run across, I'm happy to say.
That’s good. Now, why on earth did you do "Have You Never Been Mellow?"
I don’t know. I think Tom suggested it and I was like, “OK, whatever, we’ll do it.”
Do you have any major favorites on here, or is it just the whole thing?
I like the whole thing. I like "Fueled By Hate," that’s one of my favorite ones. "Martha Will," that I like. "Hooker Fortified Pork Products" I think is pretty funny. "Stay Dead" I really like.
It’s a good record.
Yeah, yeah it is. It’s a lot of fun.
I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like, since it’d been, what, ten years since the last one?
Way more than that. Whenever Splatter Rock came out. I think that was ’91.
Oh! I didn’t realize it was that early in the ’90s.
Yeah.
Wow, 14 years. Yeah, on first listen it sounded more punky to me, but that’s just because it’s fast. Because I listened to it a second time and I was like, “No, that’s the way that Tom plays the guitar. That’s thrash.” So what else do you like to do? What else do you have time to do when you’re not doing the band or hanging out with your daughter or working? Does your wife work? Is she a teacher?
No, actually she’s involved in this big roller derby resurgence.
Really?!
Yeah. It's getting really big all throughout the U.S. There are all these female roller derby leagues that are springing up all over.
There’s actually an article about that in the new Hustler!
Is there?
Yeah!
Yeah, there’s a couple of them in Texas, and, yeah, all over.
Yeah, that’s what it was - it was the Texas ones. Wow, she does that? Does she do the roller derby itself?
Yeah. A couple years ago we were having dinner with a friend and the topic came up, and next thing they knew, they got their little group going, this group of girls, and they started -
What’s the nickname of the team?
Actually their league here in Seattle is called the Rat City Roller Girls. They have four teams in the league. She’s on the Socket Wenches. There’s one team that’s called the DLF - the Derby Liberation Front - and there’s Grave Danger, and the Throttle Rockets is the other one. Yeah, this is their first season, so they do about every month. It’s kind of kitschy, kind of campy, and they have bands and a DJ.
What are the rules? Do you just try to knock people over?
Man, I don’t know. I’ve had the rules explained to me a bunch of times. There’s jammers and pivots and somebody’s trying to get around somebody else. You get points for whatever person it is that’s supposed to go around it. The people that get knocked down are the blockers or whatever. I don’t pay that much attention to the rules. But there are rules, and people do get hurt.
That’s pretty action-packed.
Yeah, it is. Once they started, it was really crazy. Just the amount of press. Everything that they’ve done, all the bouts are sold out. Actually, the first two or three that they did, they were selling out in an hour or two hours.
Wow. Did you… I guess I should let you get off the phone in a minute. Did you ever have any problems with violent crowds at your shows back in the day?
Really we never did. Except for during that period of time when the skinhead thing was really big. It was a problem with the skinheads. We did a show in Portland one time where, at that point in time, the skinhead problem was really bad in Portland, Oregon, and they even had a task force down there. Somebody had threatened to kill one of the members of the band, so the skinhead task force was down there, they were stopping all the skinheads on the street before they got into the show and they were being photographed.
Did one of the members of the band say something about the skinheads?
I don’t know. Back then, if you were anti-racist or anything you would just rub these guys the wrong way. We had a problem like that. We had another problem in Atlanta with some skinheads.
Wait, didn’t you have a black guy in your band for a while?
He was just a friend of mine who was on the back cover of that album.
Oh he wasn’t in the band?
No, he was just kind of there, like “Here’s our security guy."
Oh, all right.
Yeah. So then we had a skinhead thing in Atlanta. We had another problem -
Atlanta, that’s where I grew up. I remember the skinheads in Atlanta. I remember them being at the big DRI show I was at. And the singer said, “Where were you guys last year when we toured with Body Count?”
Ha! But yeah, other than that, no problems at all.
What is the difference between your old crowd and your new crowd? Is it the same people but older? Or is it the same age kids but new?
Really it’s the same people but older. It’s a lot more difficult to attract the younger crowd. We never really reached that iconic status like a Suicidal Tendencies or a COC or a DRI where our name is engraved in the hardcore mythology. So we did some all-ages shows here in Seattle where there was nobody there this time around. I don’t know. The kids, they’re not the same. I don’t know if they’re spoiled or apathetic or what.
Well, it might just be because it’s been so long since you’ve put out a record. I don’t know.
Well, there’s that. I think some of the kids back in the day would get excited about going to see live music. I think the new generation - they’ve missed out on that period of time. There was no live music for them to see, and now there’s so much that they’re not willing to try out something new.
Or maybe they’re just all busy on the Internet.
Yep. They’re all busy downloading off the internet, watching their MTV and playing their GameCubes and Playstation IIs.
Such a drag. I never got to see the Accused live. I don’t remember you coming to Atlanta. Maybe it was before ’89 or after I went to college. I don’t know.
Yeah, we did a couple of them. I can’t remember what the name of the big place at that point in time was.
The Masquerade? That was a pretty popular place. Or was it the Wreck Room? That was a big place. Well, it was a long time ago.
Yeah, definitely. I think one of the first times we played there, we played with the Rollins Band.
Ooh!
It might have even been when he first started doing the Rollins Band. That was kind of more in the downtown area. And then the time we played there when we had the skinhead problem, that was kind of out from the city, in this big warehouse-type place.
That sounds like the place where I saw DRI. It was a place right off the highway.
Yeah. I think so.
Yeah, that place was a huge skinhead hangout for some reason. I was actually scared driving home from that place, because they were all over the place.
Yeah, it was a scary place.
I wonder where they all came from. At any rate, it’s been an hour. Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you.
Hi! Mark Prindle here. In May 2006, I received the following email from Blaine. Although he's still reticent to say the actual name of 'the one,' let's assume it's a guitar player of some sort:
well what i can say is that in the end there where three that couldn't play with one. there was one that wasn't going to be man enough, sincere enough, adult enough to take ownership of his behavior. one that had a hard time making it to gigs on time, hard time making it to practice one day a week, that nothing could be planned months in advance as the one would change his mind. one whose paranoid mind created some plot against him. feeling that he was ripped off. he in fact went behind our backs and copyrighted the name of the band and only put his name on the paperwork. for the one to think that he was the sole motivating force, the creativity behind the imagery of the accused, the gel that held things together. that is false. if the one wants to cash in on his accused legacy then he should be playing the original songs before i joined the band before things really took off.
alex and i had seen this ugly angry side before. alex more so than myself. as alex was also doing gruntruck after the accused.
the one has taken it upon himself to run with the ball and do projects with our collective material solely to line his own pockets. even going as far as to put it lightly hijack monies do to all of us for projects that were initiated while we were all still together.
one who never and i do mean never called the members of the band together to practice. last summer before we went to do those few bay area shows we only practiced twice. that was twice for the whole summer.
the atomosphere and culture of the band lacked solidarity and a sense of cohesiveness. that was not what we were going for this go around. it was a one for all all for one mentality.
the one. his job is that of a video tape duplicator. though his scheduling and time was held at a higher premium than the rest of us. myself i was going to school, coaching my daughter daily with her homework, karate practice and all that goes along with having a child.
it's not necesary to say who did what for the band or who didn't. all conversations were about fairness.
in the end you can plainly see who isn't being fair, honest and trustworthy. the one never came to us with a tone of reconciliation and wonderment. he came to us with anger and hatered. spewing venom and profanity.
in the end when the one told me that i never gave a shit about him, i then knew how he in his heart felt about me. i never ever did him any wrong ever. he was the one that bailed on the accused after our last record with nastymix. reaching for that brass ring.
i'm truely saddened by the fact that he is going to try to make a new accused.
the accused can never be duplicated. the members of the band shared a common bond and shared set of experiences. we came from the same 'old school' of hardcore and punk rock. the music played with a passion that came from the soul. not one motivated money.
i can continue to be bashed on splatterrock site. alex steve and myself have had nothing what so ever to do with the comments or questions that other fans have posted on that chatboard. i don't go to that site. i won't go where i'm not welcome. i'm occasionally filled in about some of the stuff that goes on on that site.
i think about this everyday. it fills my dreams and nightmares.
i had always said to the one that i didn't want to embark on something that in the end was going to leave the taste of shit in my mouth. i wish we would've done the few shows and called it quits.
Blaine seems to be a really nice guy, very down to earth. You mention in the interview the band The Lewd. Man, that's really good stuff! Songs like "Pay or Die", "Climate of Fear" or "beyond moderation" are among the best 77 style punk i've ever heard! In the Battalion of Saints review you say that, since you have heard lots of Punk bands before, groups like B of Saints or Saccharine Trust don't impress you that much, but i think The Lewd were really interesting and deserved much more than they got (at least in the underground scene).
Just like to say that Blaine is a nice guy. The first time he ever sang in front of anybody I was there at the “Gas Chamber”, this was a house about ten of us rented in West Seattle (it was called so because of the leaky furnace). Blaine (ZIPPY as my friend and originator of the Fartz …..Steve Fart coined him) began his trademark singing (?) method that night with about thirty of us in the living room.
I would also like to say that Blaine is very talented, he comes from good stock both his parents are professionals (Law, and Education). I personally have not seen Blaine in ten years and for that matter I have not seen Steve for about that long as well.
Your article brought back some fond memories, I might just have to give Zippy a call.
If anyone can tell me where I can obtain MarthaSplatter...whether it be album,CD, tape, whatever, please email me!
P.S. What happened to Coven? "Iron Dick" was like Brain Pain's (Seattle's KCMU Sunday Night Metal Show) top song! It beat Slayer's "Angel of Death" Anyone???
Blaine thanks for doing it again with Oh Martha, even if it has been 10 years.
I also used to play them all the time on my radio show at Guilford College...we had a weekly show and we played the song "Splatter Rock"--the version from the Thrasher Magazine comp--every week (plus lots of their other stuff too). So it kind of makes me a little sad when Blaine says that he thinks the Accused never reached an iconic status...I know a lot of people around here who would disagree, and I don't even know if they played in NC more than that one time.
Also, you should check out some pictures of the band Municipal Waste...Ryan, the guitarist has an Accused sticker on his strat and you can TOTALLY hear the influence in his playing. Matter of fact, first time I saw them, they were on stage tuning up, plugging in, and whatever, and when I saw that sticker, I said, "Holy shit! You like the Accused?" and he replied by playing the opening riff from the song "Martha Splatterhead".
My band, Crimson Spectre, has been fucking around with "Slow Death" for a while, and may put it in the set soon...and our shit is anti-capitalist zombie thrash, so the influence of the Accused goes beyond just the sound...
Anyway, thanks for the interview. I loved reading it.
