Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Craig of the band Living Hell. How are you doing today, Craig?
Craig Mack: I’m doing great. Thanks for giving me a call and giving me the interview.
Rock My Monkey: Since most of our readers are going to be new to the band, do you mind starting things off by telling me how the band came together?
Craig Mack: Well, I had played in hard core punk bands probably for about ten years prior to this. I was in a band called Wide Awake, Follow Through, and Fear Tomorrow. I took a two, three years off, and one of my good friends, John Thomas, who played guitar for Pale Horse, passed away. So Fear Tomorrow and Follow Through did a reunion show, as a benefit for himself. By doing the reunion show, I kind of got a hankering to do bands again. I teamed up with some of the guys from Fear Tomorrow, Seann Mckay, and some of the guys from another Connecticut band called Dead Wrong, Jack Labarca, Brett Brett Bloxsom and that’s how we all started. Now it’s me, Craig, Seann Mckay is still in the band, Jack Labarca is still in the band, Jim Volinski, another one of our long time friends who’s now playing bass for us. He plays in the Bloodshot Hooligans. And Danny Sullivan, a long time mainstay in the Connecticut hardcore metal scene.
Rock My Monkey: Now Seann Mckay would not be any relation to an Ian MacKaye, would he?
Craig Mack: No, no relation to Ian MacKaye. Although he does have a nephew named Ian McKay, but not the one we’re thinking of.
Rock My Monkey: Are you aware of a movie that’s coming out called Living Hell, coming out in early 2008?
Craig Mack: Well, it’s probably a remake of a Japanese film called Living Hell, which came out in 2001, maybe 2000. And that was an attempt at a Japanese Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So if I was to bet, I’d bet Living Hell 2008 would be the remake of that, because the Japanese movies are so popular over here lately. Horror movies.
Rock My Monkey: This one has something to do with roots, it looks like roots of a tree attacking people.
Craig Mack: That was done in Evil Dead 2, which was pretty good. But I don’t know. I’m going to search for that when I’m done.
Rock My Monkey: Probably a Sci Fi ‘not so original’ movie.
Craig Mack: Yeah, probably.
Rock My Monkey: What song on your cd do you think has the potential of being a classic, a song that fans demand for decades to come?
Craig Mack: Oh, boy, that’s a tough question. Classic. A song that really jumps out at me would be “The Resurrection”, which is the opening track of the record. I seem to be one of the only people that really feels that way so far, but I think it’s got the staying power. It’s got a lot of different paces, it’s got a long, gloomy message, parts where kids can sing along. And hopefully the lyrics can affect kids in their own way. And of course it’s got a great mosh part.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think makes Living Hell unique in the hardcore scene, and what do you guys offer fans that no other hardcore band does today?
Craig Mack: That’s a tough question. There’s a lot of great hardcore bands that are out right now. Living Hell, I guess, as silly as it sounds, we don’t try to do too much. We’re a hardcore band at heart. We believe not making an amazing core band too crazy or too mainstream. We stick to fast parts, slow parts, singalongs, stuff like that. We have a little metal influence in us, but I think hardcore always has. It’s always been either hardcore metal or hardcore punk. Between the Cro-Mags and Leeway and Judge and compared to Minor Threat, Black Flag, and The Misfits. I think we have a great live set. We exude a lot of energy. The lyrics are different than other stuff. They incorporate a lot of aspects of horror, into horror movies, but there’s double meanings to everything obviously. I’m not really screaming about werewolves. I don’t know. I think we’re a throwback to the early 90’s bands like Judge and Integrity, and things like that.
Rock My Monkey: How did you guys hook up with Revelation Records?
Craig Mack: That’s a good question. My first band, well my second band, Follow Through, right before we broke up, we were going to be doing our record, or talked of doing our record, with Revelation. That was a more straight forward hardcore band, straight edge. It was just like, after Living Hell came out we were looking for a label, and Revelation’s always been one of my favorite labels in hardcore. They did a lot of the stuff that I really liked growing up . Gorilla Biscuits, Judge, Youth Of Today, Into Another, Quicksand, all those bands I really, really enjoyed. So when we had a chance to do something with Revelation, I was really excited about it. One of the kids I used to see around with Follow Through and Floor Punch, things like that, was named Bob Shed, and he was working at Revelations at the time. We got in touch with him. He was excited about doing it, and about a year later, here we are right now.
Rock My Monkey: Is there any plans for a video single for this release?
Craig Mack: Videos, I’m not quite sure we have a market for videos. Like I said, we don’t have much rapping or singing in our songs. I don’t know how they’d go over in the mainstream. But we have talked about doing videos with Dwid Hellion from Integrity. He does videos, and he’s interested in doing one. It’s just a matter of raising the funds and dedicating the time. So yeah, maybe.
Rock My Monkey: Any idea on what song that would be?
Craig Mack: I would probably do “The Resurrection”, like I said. Or our song on the record called “Malleus Dei”, which is one of our slower, mid-paced songs. It’s got a long acoustic guitar intro with some metal soloing over it, that sort of thing. The song is really about the state of humanity, so I think that would be interesting to do a video over with imagery, in that vein.
Rock My Monkey: Was the artwork a collaboration between just Michael Howland and Dwid Hellion, or did the band give them the basic concept and direct them through the process?
Craig Mack: Michael Howland is one of my best friends. He’s been so for the last twenty years. And he is a fantastic artist. He’s done a lot of work for us. We told him that we were doing a record, and just basically give him carte blanche to do what he would like. He’s done that a lot with a lot of our things. He came up with the cover art. That’s with the man being ripped open by the beast, and getting up for more. To us it symbolizes duality between the humanistic side of man, and the beast. And the inside stuff was all done by Dwid. He helped with the layout, helped with the-he helps with everything. Dwid’s a good friend of mine and he always pitches in and really extends himself to help us. But it was all their ideas, all formulated around the music and what we stand for.
Rock My Monkey: Right now you guys only have your MySpace website. Is a full website going to be launched anytime soon?
Craig Mack: Not anytime soon. We don’t really have much demand for a full website. The MySpace usually, it pretty much acts like our website. I know it kind of limits people to the people that can view it through MySpace. But eventually we will have a full website, but I don’t know the timeframe of it.
Rock My Monkey: Is there anything about this album that you wish you could have added, or anything you wish you could have changed in hindsight?
Craig Mack: Well, being picky, I would have redone some of my vocals obviously. But I don’t think I could ever record anything that I’d be 100% happy with. I’m extremely happy with how this record came out. We did exactly what we wanted. We wanted to kind of leash ourselves and make a record that was hardcore, and not too metal, not trying to overdo anything. And I think we did it on this one. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s by far the best thing I’ve ever done musically, and I really hope kids enjoy it.
Rock My Monkey: You’ve said “The Resurrection” is pretty much your favorite song on this cd, but would it also be the most personal song on this cd?
Craig Mack: No, it’s probably not the most personal song. “The Resurrection” is more, “Resurrection” lyrically is more geared toward political stuff, my feelings on the world. There’s a lot of songs on the record that deal with my emotions personally. A lot of songs dealing with depression, with loss, things of that nature. I would say the song “Everything” on the record, which is an older one of ours, really is the most personal. It’s about loss, particularly my mother.
Rock My Monkey: Is there any lesson that the band has learned that you could share with other bands that are spinning their wheels trying to get on a label like Revelation or one of the others?
Craig Mack: Huh. Well, I guess lesson learned is hardcore music in general is 99% luck. Just the way that sounds, I’ve seen the best bands burn up without ever making it, and bands that shouldn’t be where they are that are where they are. We might fit into that category. The best thing I can say is just keep plugging away. The longer that you’re there and involved, the more chances you have.
Rock My Monkey: What are the chances of the band doing a full coast to coast tour of the U.S. anytime soon?
Craig Mack: Well, it should be happening. We did one already, that was in July. We did that one with Cold World and Black Listed. That was a lot of fun. Both of the bands were awesome, and we owe them a huge debt for taking us out. We are doing an East Coast down to Florida and back up through Chicago, probably like two and a half weeks in January. And then hopefully in the spring we’ll be doing a full U.S. again, and hopefully European.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think is the most annoying cliché in hardcore today?
Craig Mack: The most annoying cliché in hardcore today? I don’t know what the most annoying cliché is, but the most annoying thing to me in hardcore today is the fact that people join the scene because they are outsiders, and want to be an outcast, but as soon as they join the scene, just jump right into the same old mold that they tried to escape. Hardcore is no different than a high school, and no one realizes that.
Rock My Monkey: Now is the time in the interview I like to call The Lightening Round. I’m going to name something in popular news, and you sum up your thoughts in one short sentence.
Craig Mack: Okay. Let’s do it.
Rock My Monkey: Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Craig Mack: Don’t like Ron Paul.
Rock My Monkey: The NBC show Heroes.
Craig Mack: Great.
Rock My Monkey: The iPhone.
Craig Mack: I don’t even have a cell phone.
Rock My Monkey: President Bush.
Craig Mack: He’s made a lot of mistakes.
Rock My Monkey: Fox News.
Craig Mack: I enjoy their coverage.
Rock My Monkey: Recording Industry Association Of America.
Craig Mack: I have no comment on them.
Rock My Monkey: I do have one final question. Every year we do choose one final question that we ask every single band from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands, hardcore, everything, at the end of every interview. Partially to stump people, but also to see who wimps out and won’t answer. This year I’m the final question, I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody world wide famous, who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Craig Mack: Craig Mack
Rock My Monkey: Alright. Cool. I thank you very much for doing the interview, and anybody that’s listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text and many more wonderful features. I’m asking people to click on the album cover above and below this interview to purchase The Lost And The Damned by Living Hell. And I do hope to see you guys up on tour in the Northwest sometime soon, hopefully at a club called Studio 7. I thank you very much for your time.
