In today’s interview we get to know a little better the metal punk band with members scattered between Berlin and Emilia. They have recently released their second album titled “Sell Me Lies” in 12″ colored vinyl format, thanks to a DIY conspiracy involving our label!

• Radio Punk: Hi guys and welcome to our ‘zine. Tell us a little bit about yourselves, how and where did you meet since some of you are based in Italy, in Emilia more precisely and others in Berlin? How did you come up with the idea of starting a band with so much geographical distance?

Bobson Dugnutt: Bobson Dugnutt formed between 2017/2018 in Correggio. When we started writing we didn’t have a singer, so we wrote most of the songs without the voice, it was basically an instrumental band. In Fall 2018 Jack moved to Berlin and we paused  the project to understand how to manage it. In a few weeks he met David and they listened to our music. David enjoys the music a lot and asks if he can sing on it. There were some weeks where we talked about if it was possible to run a band this way. In the end we were all convinced after hearing David’s demo of our first 2 songs. I remember it was the end of October when we all met in Berlin, and really began to work together on this. Ok we didn’t work 12h a day as you think, we rather get wasted every day and the workflow just came naturally between us. In December 2018 we spent the Christmas holiday recording our first EP “Be The Change (Or Whatever)”. 

• Radio Punk: Let’s start by saying that we hate asking this question, but we haven’t found any great answers out there, so perhaps those who read us will also be interested in knowing the answer to this question: who or what is Bobson Dugnutt and why the choice of this name?

Bobson Dugnutt: Bobson Dugnutt is a fictional character based on various known assholes and our collective worst qualities. A stupid, vulgar, mean person that will do all sorts of cheap tricks and use low cunning to achieve his base desires. That  is the channel in which we deal with our themes, through the eye of the monster, so to speak. The name came from a meme that made us laugh a lot, about the “American” names of some of the baseball players in an 80s Japanese baseball video game. Bobson Dugnutt was the funniest name there so we chose that.

• Radio Punk: We were just saying that one of your peculiarities is this scattering between Berlin and Emilia. How do you practically carry on a band, compose, record and organize gigs while being so far away?

Bobson Dugnutt: Let’s start by saying that the strength of Bobson is to play live. We consider ourselves a live band that gives 110 % on a stage, and of course we enjoy spending time together. So most of the organization goes into touring and gigs. Composing and recording process is harder of course but we developed some skills to deal with it. We record demos in our rehearsal rooms, sometimes in Berlin sometimes in Italy, with MIDI drums if needed, and then work on it until the song is finished. To start a band with these premises is really hard. We really miss sometimes the rehearsal room, hanging out together and all the other band related activities that we should do. We had 8 or 10  rehearsals all together in 5 years. There are songs that we played for the first time together on stage. But hey… As long as we have fun we actually don’t give Shieeet! 

• Radio Punk: Tell us a little about your latest album “Sell Me Lies” in general. Both on a musical level but also tell us what themes you tackle, who created and what the splendid artwork represents and also tell us about all the people and realities involved behind this work…

Bobson Dugnutt: Sell Me Lies was recorded in Nebiolo Record Studio, a fabulous DIY reality right in our rehearsal room in Italy. About sound we can say that it’s much brighter than our previous EP and we defined better the way we want to compose, blending Metal and Hardcore both fast and slow, always trying to find the nastiest riffs mixed with some peculiar vocal lines. This contributed to create our Motto: Heavy, Fast, Rock’n’Roll. 
About the lyrics we deal a lot with toxicity, hero worship, ignorance, and all of these good stuff, but I think a major connecting thread is the lack of capacity to self-reflect and how poisonous that could be. We  really enjoyed trying to write all the lyrics from the perspective of the person who is absolutely wrong about the issue. And of course, vulgar childish humor. 

• Radio Punk: Do you plan to take this album far and wide with tours around the world? And more generally what do you have in the works?

Bobson Dugnutt: The Goal is to play as much as possible as long as the album is available for buying, when it will be sold out we will retire to waste all the money until the next album will be out. Do you have any suggestions on where we should go? 

• Radio Punk: Tell us a little about yourselves outside the band: hobbies, passions, jobs…

Bobson Dugnutt: BD Love: to deal with computers, hack programs, shooting videos of something we actually don’t care, running in the city, seaside, oriental food, Secret of the Sphinx, painting trains, small province bars, rehearsal rooms afterparty, gardening, floor stages, house party, horror movies, being drunk in public, cartoons, Twin Peaks, painting canvas, building stuff DIY, to curse every god, big stages, Cold Beers, Hot Beers, free train rides, Backstreet Boys, being drunk at home, steal in the highway station (Autogrill <3), Italian comedy movies, Lino Banfi, Sandwich AFTER the gig, grappa, graffiti Tags, B-side Movies, take the Shit BEFORE the gig, hiking, mountains, Tony Montana.  But the thing we love the most is weed. 
BD hate: Jobs, nazis, punk police

• Radio Punk: You have played in different places and cities, in which situations do you feel most comfortable and which are the concerts that you remember with most pleasure?

Bobson Dugnutt: We are the most comfortable when we can sleep on a mattress and pee in a toilet.
There were a lot of unforgettable moments in these 5 years playing together, but if we have to pick two, I would say Monteparadiso 2023 and a gig we had in Barocchio Squat in Torino. Those were extremely wild shows. 

• Radio Punk: Still remaining in the field of cities and places, what is the scene like in the different cities where you live? What differences do you find between them?

Bobson Dugnutt: We are not the kind of band that cares much about the “Scene” and actually most of the time we don’t see it. We see friends and people we love to spend time with and create something together or have mutual help.
The only significant difference between Germany and Italy is the amount of places where to play and organization of the people inside these places whether these are clubs or squats. 

• Radio Punk: How important are DIY ethics and the political aspect understood as values ​​such as anti-fascism, anti-sexism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-militarism and so on to you?

Bobson Dugnutt: Very important, I mean, that’s what our audience likes to hear!
Jokes aside, we can say DIY ethic is very important to us both for growing ourselves as a person and both to connect with people that share the same feeling of fulfillment by building something on your own. We think that Bobson is proof of this and we’re proud of it.  For sure is important to us to create a better world, and we try to  do it in our everyday life and we totally stand for everything you mentioned.  
But we don’t want to just repeat what everyone else is already saying, we like to deal with more granular, class related, personal-is-political subjects, rather than general concept like “bad thing is bad”.

• Radio Punk: What future do you foresee for our scene? Unfortunately there is little generational turnover and there is a constant increase in repression, which reduces aggregative situations to the bone and takes away physical places. What can be done to reverse the trend?

Bobson Dugnutt: Even if these genres of music, and i’m referring to punk metal hardcore etc, don’t seem to attract the next generation i was pleased to notice, in these last two years after the pandemic, a little increase of young people at gigs and some young crews organizing also in some squats so this is nice. But at the same time as you said there are always less places and situations where extreme music can be done, not enough for the amount of bands that the “scene” has to offer at least, and I honestly don’t know how to reverse this trend. 
In order to survive punk and hardcore need to adapt and evolve, and i don’t know if it can. 

• Radio Punk: We thank you for the chat and we leave you a free space to say what you like! Bye, friends!

Bobson Dugnutt: We’d like to thank our families, all the promoters that organized us a gig and all that didn’t until now, the labels that believed in us and that made possible releasing “Sell Me lies”, and of course all our friends and all the bands that shared the stage and partied with us, you know you are. See you in the pit! 

Heavy, Fast, Rock’n’Roll. FY

L'articolo Interview with Bobson Dugnutt proviene da Radio Punk.

Some of us damned from the black metal collective with revolutionary ambitions ‘Semirutarum Urbium Cadavera‘ share the misfortune of living in Bologna, the city that hosts the tireless minds and arms behind the RadioPunk project. On the sidelines of an overpriced concert and a funeral rally without a single clash, we said to each other ‘well come on, at least we still have our shitty music’ and ‘but are we going to do a collaboration?’. Needless to say, we proudly claim that the music we support, black metal, is far worse than that promoted by RadioPunk, and so it goes without saying that it will be Tommaso and Zoe who will host our delusions.
So we got together to think about what to do: originally the idea was to produce a retrospective on an entheogenic black metal project, but we thought that was a bit too mainstream.

And so here we are with a very ORIGINAL list of RABM (Red and Anarchist Black Metal) records that you should know about, so IF YOU REALLY must take an interest in our shit (don’t, we’re proud gatekeepers) you can avoid looking like a poser by giving money to MGLA* for chrissake. 

Here’s the list of RABM records that – at least one – you should listen to, buy the T-shirt of and wait for a live show that will never be there.

* Yes, they’re Nazis but don’t worry, they fooled us at first too.

#666 SORGSVART – “FORTAPT FRA VERDEN I VAKKERT SELVMORD”

SorgSvart, from Norway, was an anarchic one-man band, founded back in 1999 by Sorg, and one of the leading and pioneering groups of the RABM scene.
This record consists of five tracks, all rather long and influenced by prominent folk and viking elements. The influence of his compatriot projects such as Isengard and Storm is notable.
Too bad that after the release of only one more excellent record (‘Vikingtid og anarki’) the project will see an end.

#666 INVERTED CANDLES – “NOCTURNAL DEMONSTRATION”

Debut demo by this band from Texas, strongly influenced by a clearly Finnish-style black.
Ice-cold riffs, but not without a marked melodic sense, accompany the listener from the very first bars of the disc. Excellent work recommended to all lovers of the most classic and primitive black metal.

#666 BOOK OF SAND – “OCCULT ANARCHIST PROPAGANDA”

Dissonant, raw and yet atmospheric and hypnotic, if you are into the weirdest edges of black metal this record will satisfy that “I want more of this, but I don’t perfectly know what this is” craving. With a healthy dose of contempt and hate for the idiots rallying around the failure we call NSBM and all the “Hitlerian/wotanist/occult/cHaOs mAgIck”, speaking of “aryan eons” and other delusional bullshit, D. manages to blend anarchist philosophy and, well, occultism. It’s in the name, after all, and it shows in the music, aggressive but also somehow “esoteric”, ritualistic; it is like listening to the sound of a riot of Left Hand practitioners, charging with covered faces while screaming hexes to all that is shitty: hierarchies, nazis, exploitation.

#666 OPERATION VOLKSTOD – “ANTI-FASCIST BLACK METAL”

Right from the title and cover, depicting a proletarian crucified with a swastika, this anarchist one-man band from Frankfurt immediately makes its political stance clear.
The sound is a direct child of the comrade’s attitude, raw and minimal, perhaps not for all but certainly honest and sincere.
Suitable for those who like Iskra-style sounds.

#666 IRON COLUMN – “POWER FROM BELOW”

Also from Germany, comes this anarchic project characterised by a sound that owes much to the second Norwegian black wave, but with a melodic twist.
A record that flows pleasantly and is denoted by superb riffs that do not bore and keep the listener glued in. Truly remarkable.

#666 NON SERVIAM – “LE COEUR BAT”

Non Serviam are a Paris-based, militant collective, very prolific and protagonist of various musical experiments, even far from the extreme metal field (see Biollante).
The disc in question is characterised by very experimental and dilated sounds and a cybernetic and dreamy atmosphere at the same time.
The title track is remarkable, a 25-minute journey into the deepest depths of the human soul. Also very interesting are the insights and analyses produced by the collective and available on their website.

#666 SILICOSE – “AU FOND DE LA MINE”

We don’t have much information about this project. We do know that it comes from France, that the first and so far only record is a concept album about the struggle and misery of working in mines. Silicosis is a worker’s disease, affecting the lungs of those exposed to breathing silicon. And this band has made a condemnation and a denunciation. That of the plight of thousands of workers forced to choose between illness and starvation. Musically they offer a black/thrash with epic traits, the direct offspring of bands like Aura Noir.

#666 DODSRIT – “MORTAL COIL”

Epic and melodic black metal from Sweden. As an atmosphere, it closely resembles the typical ‘new wave’ sound of bands like MGLA and Groza.
Double bass, wild screaming and sharp riffs alternate with more reflective and introspective parts.
Highly recommended.

#666 PROFECIUM – “SOCIALISMO SATANICO”

In 1994, while those losers from the Norwegian inner circle were getting themselves condemned for not being able to get things right, Profecium was born in Argentina. In ’97 their socialist black metal manifesto with Argentinian characteristics was released. Socialismo Satanico has a symphonic vein found in the work of certain Norwegian ambiguous babes (Troll, Emperor), some more trashy passages and, for sure, a child-eating attitude that is unrepeatable.

BONUS: THEY COULD HAVE BEEN ANYWHERE, BUT INSTEAD THEY ARE OR WERE IN BOFOGNA*

*The author uses a wordplay between ‘Bologna’ and ‘Fogna’, which means sewer.

NACHTSCHWARZ – “ABYSMAL RUIN”

This anarchic band plays tight but at the same time very melodic black metal.
Recommended for fans of Naglfar and Dissection from the first two albums, but without the satanic-homophobic cringe. Excellent song-writing and production, a gem of which we hope there will be a sequel.

SPETTRO – “SPETTRO”

AAAARGHHH. Immortal from Bologna but without face painting. This is the band we all hope will find a live dimension, but we all know that all hope in black metal is consumed in the black flames of pain and panic. We produced the cassettes for them and you must buy them on our bandcamp.

THE MALNATT COLLECTIVE – “PIANURA PAGANA”

Yeah OK it’s not really RABM, maybe you could call it nihilistic social democratic black metal. But it rocks. It is (at the moment) the latest work by the collective that for years shared a name with the evidently superior Milanese racist band. They are old people who hate second wave black metal, not like us who are young and hate metal in general. To organise a gig for them has always been our dream but they are Alchemica people and actually in Bologna there isn’t even an occupation to propose to them in order to get a no by making us tick.

“Ne approfittiamo per segnalare che come collettivo Semirutarum Urbium Cadavera saremo ospiti a Noise Attack! su Radio Città Fujiko lunedì 24 aprile dalle ore 23. Sintonizzatevi su radiocittafujiko.it per ascoltare le nostre stronzate e dell’altra musica brutta e non necessariamente rivendicabile.”

Follow us on social media, find us as @scadavera and at scadavera.noblogs.org or at punk concerts.
No Mosh, No Core, No Trends, No Fun, No NSBMcanidivetro

Translation by Dee Sastrous

Support us:

We are a DIY project, and you can support us, if you like, in one of the following ways:
– you can take a look at our catalog and order records, CDs, books, pins, and more;
– you can join our open call with a previously unpublished article

L'articolo Red and Anarchist Black Metal (RABM): 12 key records proviene da Radio Punk.

She has played several instruments, perhaps her specialty is d-beat on drums, or maybe mega-riffs on strings, lately in the one-woman-band project “Marthe” she has also been singing.
The bands she has been a part of are literally part of the Italian crust/d-beat/post-punk DIY heritage, although she will play modestly and deny it! Let’s get to know the legendary Marzia better!

Radio Punk: Hi Marzia and welcome to our ‘zine! We live like two streets away and I often pass by the good Koppa and it’s very funny that the interview is written. But let’s get on with it! Tell us a little bit, when did the spark go off in you and you approach this world? Do you take a long way around and go from metal/other music genres or politics first, or do you come straight to punk?

Marzia: Hi! Actually, it would be nicer to do it in Agipunk HQ or over breakfast in Bolognina but since I live walled up in a school from September to June (like Miss Trinciabue) let’s do it in the metaverse
I’ll tell you, after 25+ years of path, music, bangs but above all coherence, I won’t be modest and I’ll gladly take the compliments, thank you <3 It’s true that I’ve been able to go through and be part of a good slice of our recent punk history, fortunately being able to experience many of the realities that have now gradually disappeared and breathing the tail of an atmosphere that has become more and more rarefied. In these years I have never been given or facilitated an mm of what I have done, I have sweated for everything I have conquered, alone and thanks to wonderful fellow travelers, even though some paths have been interrupted.
Talking about my path as the first thing I say is thank you to punk because it saved my life. Without music I would have ended up like most of my peers in my small town, battered by the heroin of the 80s/90s.  
I owe ‘everything’ to Queen, may the detractors of this incredible band rest in peace. Watching the Freddie Mercury Tribute live in ’92 I discovered Metallica and thanks to them I discovered the Misfits and Diamond Head and thanks to GnR I discovered UK Subs, Damned, and Dead Boys. And it all started from there, especially going deep into the political aspect as music for its own sake never seemed complete to me.
Next to my house, there was a record shop (Power Station) and the owner (the late Paolo Montaresi, also a member of an early 80s La Spezia post-punk band, Pagan Easter) used to suggest a lot of listening to me. He made me discover Extreme Noise Terror like that, at random, at the age of 13, when I didn’t even know what crust was. Sepultura, Extreme Noise Terror, Tiamat, and The Cure made a difference in my life, because each of these bands, at various times, made me discover the various genres and sub-genres related to them.
My path was similar to that of many of my peers at the time, and I believe the path of younger people nowadays does not develop in the same way anymore considering how many trends, music, culture, and art pass through social media and the internet and the ever-increasing interconnection real/virtual world. In my case the steps were: metal – (A) punk – riot grrrl, crust joining later other shades of black.

Radio Punk: Well, but we want to know everything, and our readers have to rediscover amazing bands you’ve played in. I think I knew you with Doxie, but you were also part of Campus Sterminii, another band I love. Tell us a bit about the projects/collectives you’ve been a part of, musical and otherwise.

Marzia: I have never been part of a collective in a formal way. I have happily been part of some occupied realities and collaborated with Atlantis for a long time but more behind the scenes, when needed and co-organizing some evenings (“Legion Of The Dead”). The primary reason is that I am a deeply sociable person but very lonely, so I do not find my strength in the group (political, project, work) as many people do, but I feel my limits because in general the decision-making and operational times are more dilated and it takes constant confrontation on everything. I am hyperactive and find it hard to keep up with the pace dictated by group work. I can do it, if necessary, but I prefer small groups.  
In 2021, Koppa, Masbucci and I, together with Liz (VanDerNull) for the graphics, put together ideas in the ‘Senti Il Richiamo’ collective, a ‘diffuse’ collective, with which we organized a few touring concerts in various spaces dear to us. It is a good exercise in practice, which is always needed, even if we do nothing new except to offer concerts with wider musical selections and in more transversal contexts, with an eye also to the practices and groups of the foreign scenes, which we follow a lot and with which we are quite connected despite the historical period of semi-segregation.  
As a band, on the other hand, I have had many experiences, each of which has taught me a lot. Certain lessons I would have spared myself, honestly. Linked to the above, although it is still a group dynamic, playing together with other people doesn’t cause me any problems because in a band everyone has a specific role. Or rather, in the kind of band I mean, because for example I could never play in a band where they jamma or improvise, I would go crazy.
Of a band I like the sense of belonging that is created, the bullshit on tour, the endless anecdotes.
There are also downsides: unfortunately the famous 25+ years of experience have taught me that everything can go up in smoke in three seconds. Moreover, as I go on, it is getting harder and harder to find peers (40 and above, in my case) with the same vision and drive, not to mention female peers: always the same for 20 years.
I would like to point out that if it were up to me, I would have pulled every single project since ’95. It’s just that life doesn’t really go like that (quote) and sometimes you have to deal with understandable personal and other changes, life changes, geographical relocations, artistic turns, litters, shitty jobs, misfortunes that happen to you along the way and end the path of a group.
If you want a list for when I’m dead, I’ll quote them in chronological order in this beautiful little chart (the Rat Spankers, the middle school noise group, is missing):

Many groups were from related but different genres, I like a lot of musical nuances so it was often spontaneous to want to experiment and try my hand at it, taking each project over time or several groups at once.
Let’s say it’s a bit of the cross of drumming, there are always too few of them so everyone wants them. Now it’s a bit different, I haven’t played drums for two years and I draw a veil over the reasons.

Radio Punk: Obligatory question since we’ve talked about the past so far. In your future do you think there will be room for very different projects exploring genres other than punk or metal? Is there any unfulfilled dream, even extra-musical, that you yearn for?

Marzia: I would love to play EBM. I love it so much. But it takes knobs and I don’t know how to use them well. I’m still too ‘analogggggic’ (quote).

Radio Punk: That DIY and politicking are part of your DNA we know very well. So we’d like to ask a particular question on the subject of “politics”. We think there is also in our spaces, which we often call free and safe, a problem of sexism. A lot of people, just by asking this question a while ago on our social media, got indignant and told us to fuck off, saying there was no problem and other similar crap. What do you think? What other little-talked-about problems plague the so-called ‘scene’?

Marzia: I would like to tell you that I will be brief but I am not sure. I will try to express some thoughts as clearly as possible. As we all know, sexism is a structural scourge of the society in which our ‘bubble’ is embedded, and as individuals in that society, we are permeated by it even before we can develop our own critical self-defense thinking and suffer its after-effects, despite ourselves. The difference between ‘us’ and ‘the normal world’ lies in our willingness to face the problem: latent, masked, eradicated, re-educated, fought, but we have actively addressed the problem of sexism, with great results. And we have acted accordingly, we as well as many other active and attentive members of society, let’s be clear. Speaking always and only of the punk scene, however, this is a credit we must take because much has been done.
Society does not do this, and if it does, it is only because a small, irreducible part of it does.
If I go by memory, obviously basing myself on my own experiences, I note that over the years an enormous amount of struggle and awareness work has been done by comrades and supported by comrades, and we have seen the fruits of this.
For reasons of age I wasn’t there in the 1980s, when those who were there before us were already actively addressing the problem of sexism, but I still remember the first Grrrl Pride at the Villa di Coverciano (1997) where special moments were created to discuss and explicate the problem of sexism in the spaces because evidently there was a great urgency to do so, a need to move some aspects of the movement to a more complete and inclusive level. Not to mention Atlantis, which in the picturesque way that we well remember acted for almost two decades constantly, raising awareness about the space and its values, primarily militant anti-sexism.
Over the years, I think it has come to terms with almost everything, with the understanding that the perfect bubble, like society, does not exist. Then, to say that the problem has been solved is a different kettle of fish.
I can think of a few examples, the most obvious being belittling the abilities of female artists because they are women or, conversely, attributing their success to the mere shape of their genitals.
On the other hand, I am not so keen on the question of there being fewer female musicians than male ones in punk (our own, at least), which in my opinion is an outdated discourse, I find it an obsolete count, especially since in general fewer and fewer people are playing. In the last 40 years, since punk exploded, its music (enjoyed or played) has become increasingly accessible, so the number of women in bands or on stage is no longer, in my opinion, a symptom of a lack of emancipation, but rather of a variegated undergrowth of female interests, which also cover other disciplines (not to mention the fact that I find it hard to see any young, fresh bands in Italy, male, female or of any other identity). Often the low number of female musicians was used as support for the thesis of the ‘crystal stage’ above which women could not climb because of male ostracism. Instead, I found this an offensive argument, which could cause insecurity or a sense of inferiority in girls who were less passionate about the music they played (due to operational limitations or simply personal taste) than others who played in a band instead. Once the adolescent ideological charge was over, in which perhaps with a certain childishness and naivety I may have thought that playing music was a component of my identity, as I grew up I increasingly believed and maintained that playing music, for a girl, is not a symptom of any kind of elevation or emancipation greater than other practices: it is a hobby, a passion, a means of communication or struggle like many others, such as writing, photography, drawing, they are just different channels. That’s all. If someone pointed out to me that I was attending a concert instead of being on stage I would feel deeply offended and discriminated against.
There are endless hobbies, passions, and forms of creativity besides music. One of the most aberrant monstrosities ever heard in the area of ‘sexism and music’ is the evergreen ‘good for being chicks’. Luckily it doesn’t happen often but in my case, playing drums a.k.a. an unconventional instrument especially two decades ago, I now use the same phrase towards myself when I do something particularly well, in an ironic sense of course.
On a general level and not merely musical, sexism can be stigmatizing monogamous girls by extolling female sexual promiscuity at all costs, elevating those who expose themselves explicitly to the detriment of those who keep a low profile (especially social), misinterpreting the aesthetic self-determination shared on social for predatory bait towards frustrated males who broach you or send pictures of their dicks in private messages.
To answer you instead of on the ‘evils’ of the scene, premising that I am no one to pontificate nor is it my intention, I can respond with some of my personal opinions:
– the false body positivity of certain people, which instead hides ageism and veiled body shaming towards others.
– the excessive consumption/abuse of drugs, which has now become blatant, spectacularized, and normalized, which I admit has alienated me from many situations. I find it complicit in chilling dynamics, it makes people unrecognizable and in a word: stupid. I was a teenager when I had a friend die of heroin every week, drugs are shit to me. I have worked in prevention and recovery for a long time, discomfort doesn’t make me laugh, it makes me cry. Those ravaged souls in bars quench my thirst.
– Lastly, and always and only in my opinion, the scarcity of new, young, interesting and internationally-oriented bands as mentioned before.

Radio Punk: For our outlook on life, we are not interested in making a clear distinction between men and women, but unfortunately we have to take this into account because we live in a strongly binary society. Most projects see a prevalence of male figures within them and far fewer non-binary women/people, why do you think that is? Was it difficult for you to create a ‘space’ for yourself in the scene?

Marzia: I partially answered you above so I’ll just take the last question.
For me it wasn’t difficult, it was all a natural evolution. I started playing punk thanks to the initiation by my male junior high school friend, I didn’t experience it as mansplaining, we never posed the problem of our sexes. We were loser teenagers in the Italian suburbs of the early 90s. I was the only girl in my village who played in a band, but only because the other girls did sports or dance or weren’t interested in music, and to me sports and dance were shit. When I started going out in the city I found other girls and we got together because we used to compare ourselves on common topics, but I was lucky enough to always have a balanced mix of male, female, non-binary, crazy, everything friends. Doing a trivial analysis taking my own life as a sample, I think the number of females was lower because (it sounds medieval but it was so) my parents simply let me go out less than my male friends, and so did many of my friends. Having less freedom we were less exposed to the possibilities of males who, on the other hand, already went out when they wanted and played frequently in junior high. We used to catch each other in middle school at the record shop and then in ninth grade I could go ‘out on the town’ but only on Saturday afternoons, from 2 to 7 p.m. How I cultivated my passions is still a mystery to me. Now I feel it is different and everything is more accessible anyway, for me finding a rehearsal room was the hardest thing in life. I used to get there in an hour by bus and then on foot, a nightmare. In conclusion, before, maybe there were fewer girls because of operational limitations, now because of other interests that also tend towards other dimensions than the music played. Then I have to tell the truth, I observe a good mix, always have. I have had both female and mixed groups and we were often very balanced and in good company.
It rather amazes me that there are still no pocs in bands, I can count the number on the fingers of one hand. I would love to play with people of a different nationality from my own.
I earned my space: I frequented places, moved around, participated, and then, and only then, could I remotely think of accepting an invitation to play, which didn’t rain from the sky but came when one perceived the seriousness of the motivation behind the project and its integrity. I gave blood in the form of consistency, I don’t think I made a difference in the world but I never changed, or disappeared and then reappeared. I have consistently taken part in what was happening near and far from me, with extreme modesty and gratitude for all that I have been fortunate enough to experience to date, for the people who have given me opportunities and space to express myself, and for the dimensions I have taken, for the ones I have lost along with the people who were in it. Now I draw the conclusions a little, I move around but only if there is something that really interests me and above all if it is a valid context, I always participate but I select more because I want to continue to carefully water my roots, and never get tired of who I am. In it for life? Yes, in spite of sticks in the wheels and often blows in the face.

Radio Punk: What projects are active now and how are they progressing? How are you ‘surviving’ this nefarious period for playing etc.? Do you think everything will go back to ‘normal’ and we just have to wait or do you think we will have to find new ways at the DIY/punk level to keep the spirit going? And which ones, if any?

Marzia: when you asked me the question we weren’t yet at the dawn of WWIII so I’d say I survive this period by trying to keep myself mega busy. I still worked my ass off in dad and despite a bit more free time I had zero musical inspiration.
I’ve been all in all good these past two years, since 2020, but the emotional bill is coming to me a bit now. Some events that happened to me are weighing on me, a lot.
To cut a long story short, I lost two bands and (symbolically) also a couple of key people in my life. But it’s getting on, in 2022 I finally got over it.
As active projects to date, there are Horror Vacui (a monstrous release of 6 cassettes and a booklet for our first 10 years edited by Improved Sequence is on the way), Marthe (which is a studio project, the video for the first single has just been released and the new record will be out soon), the Senti Il Richiamo collective and Mountain Moon (a quartet that makes sporadic chamber music). In the pipeline is a new band in which I can finally get back behind, on, and under the skins.
Now I’m starting to see normality again for real, I definitely feel different about a lot of situations than before but I’m pretty resilient and misanthropic enough to survive well anyway.
As for the health of our lap in post-pandemic times I think perceptions are very subjective and also vary from city to city, lately, I ignore geographical dynamics far away from me so I can’t make any judgments. All in all, I see people around or on social media who are charged up, partying, fighting, organizing their stuff, and doing their bit, I think they are happy and the scene looks good to me.
Speaking for myself, (and I emphasize, on a personal level) I do not deny, and I regret it, that I often find the Italian musical proposal as far as punk is concerned stagnant, uncreative, and banal, especially when compared to some European states and, needless to say, America (all of it). Sometimes, to give an example, in addition to concert line-ups that are not at all captivating, I also see horrifying flyers for events, without any graphic or creative effort, when in the past it was a very careful and important practice for the purposes of communication and belonging. I like a lot of what comes out of Milan and Trento because I often find it fresh and more experimental, while on a political level I am a bit disoriented and exhausted by all the pandemideological, socio-sanitary lucubrations, so I simply mind my own business a lot, I support if there is something but I often stay alone or in my inner circle, like cats when they are not too well.
That’s why I don’t know how to answer the final part of the question, I don’t have any ideas or solutions on how to keep the spirit. The very idea of spirit is varied, what spirit? The one of devastation and inhumanity that is so fashionable now? That of ‘understanding’? Or perhaps that of militant engagement? Political? The musical one? For me, the spirit has become something deeply intimate, because as someone said: ‘take away the space, break the union, that’s the best way to make them disappear’, so I can no longer navigate spaces as I used to, and I have no solutions to offer, unfortunately. In my own small way, the spirit is still to be there without having disappeared, to do the things I believe in consistently and constantly, to be vigilant, to participate, to support financially and morally what I consider to be consistent and worthy of my time and contribution. But now the spirit for me is also just to love each other among like-minded and close people and to stay in touch as much as possible without getting lost.
I have collected some major disappointments in this period so solutions before providing them to others I should provide them to myself, but I prefer a wise silence.

Radio Punk: You’ve played in thousands of contexts and maybe everywhere in the world. Is there a place you would love to play? What differences are there around the world compared to Italy? Do they tend to be more passionate abroad? Where have you had a great time playing and which was the craziest and which was the best gig you’ve been to?

Marzia: oh yes, so many wishes! Places where I would like to play there are endless! From the Hana Bi club in Romagna to the Duna Jam (dream!!! ), in Palma de Mallorca, in the Canary Islands, in Crete, in Corsica (another impossible dream), in a church, in the social centers of the elderly, in Iceland, at Entremuralhas, in a cathedral, in Morocco, in Cuba, in Japan, in South East Asia (it was on the list with Kontatto but we always put it off too long), I can go on and on because if I didn’t have a very long wish list I wouldn’t do anything as it would mean no more goals, instead, I always want to move the destination a little further ahead even if there are obviously limits, of various kinds. Often, by DIY means alone, you don’t easily reach goals that are too high for the possibilities available and we generally never ask to play so unless invited we never propose. Also, I’m not 20 years old anymore, although I don’t plan to stop, and with all the energy in the world I’ll soon be a caryatid so there, I have to move. In my small way, I’ve had a lot of satisfaction, I’ve played at all the best punk festivals, a week ago I played with She Past Away, who I love, I was very happy, I live to do these things.
As for the differences around the world, I think in some places punks are more passionate, in others they’re just flamboyant, in others they’re heavy as lead and in others, they have no sense of humor (fundamental, always).
In America, with all the criticism, they really are very passionate, and very supportive, both virtually by sharing reactions to concerts or posts and live by buying truckloads of merch, and tipping bands on tour. Mexico and Colombia also surprised me, incredible experiences and a punk ferment, especially of young boys and girls, very bubbly. There are too many crazy gigs to mention, a good memory is when Mario crapped his pants during a Kontatto gig in the Czech Republic, when the Gra disgorged goulash while singing at Play Fast, when we played in a mine or an arcade, in a ring, when I played with flippers in my costume or when I played on drums while eating, when Forca Macabra enlisted me the day before their tour, when we played in a ring. I’m not someone who does things too extravagantly or wants to impress by showing off in the moment, the best I do is in my tour diaries which are (embarrassing) containers of all the experiences of the last 10-15 years but I regret not having started earlier, although I might not have had the same verve and narrative acumen 20 years ago that I’ve developed in the last 10 for sure. That’s why all the diaries are IMPRESENT, full of gags and satire only understandable to those who were there. When I bid farewell to punk I will publish them and then disappear on some little island.

An avalanche of beautiful concerts: Ktown, PlayFast, Manic Relapse, Varning, but the beauty of the concerts in Scinti, Atlantide or Al Confino are (for the historical moment and the affinity of time) unrepeatable and engraved in my heart.

Radio Punk: For the curiosity column, we ask you what are your hobbies and passions besides music!

Marzia: hiking, traveling, mountain walking, stone circles, mysterious places to explore, urbex, DIY building, self-made jewelry, drawing, capoeira, gym, Batman, documentaries, football stories, and AC Milan, Lucarelli and Barbero, motorbikes, motorcycling, eating, reading, radio appearances from the Bocha, mythology video and audio editing, acoustic tribal percussion, birimbao, disabled cats, sewing and creative recycling, tsundoku, plants, printing photographs, etymologies, foreign languages, language and culture of Maghreb countries, eating in restaurants, symmetries, going to the beach, wearing slippers from May to October, eating potatoes. Then hundreds of other shit, now I’m building my second didgeridoo. Lastly, I put my job: after 15 years as an educator in contexts of youth distress and deviance at the Pilastro I now work for a vocational training school in Bolognina where I can continue to support young adolescents at risk of abandonment and dispersion in their path to autonomy. You know that story ‘choose the job you like and you’ll never work a day in your life’, well, after years of sacrifice, stress, and self-denial I have built my perfect dimension and seeing their big eyes every morning, watching them grow, becoming independent makes you forget all the hard work is definitely one of my greatest passions.

Marzia’s favorites:
album: oh my god how do you do that??? Wildhoney (Tiamat), Disintegration (Cure), All System Go (One Way System), Chaos AD (Sepultura), Indocrti-nation (Warcollapse), Hammerheart (Bathory), Smell The Magic (L7), Fastidio (Kaos One) then the classics, no, I can’t answer in a few lines, I even like I Nomadi! 

Movies: on the fly so Life Of Bryan, Do the right thing, East is East, The Warriors, Hate (La Haine).

Book: I’m not a big reader, I’m very fond of “High Fidelity” by Nick Hornby. 

Support us:

We are a DIY project and you can support us, if you like, in the following ways:
– you can take a look at our catalog and order records, CDs, books, pins, and more;
– you can join our open call with a previously unpublished article.

L'articolo Interview with Marziona proviene da Radio Punk.

Since 2012, Overcharge have run around the underground scene “wild and free” (the quote is a must), with a series of ingredients that mark them: a proudly and strictly Motörhead-style trio, used to loud deafening sounds and to polluting, thundering means of transport, with in the heart the raw and dystopic images of the worst post-apocalyptic B-movies.

Nothing too far from our neighborhood: this valley haunted by asbestos, concrete, dioxin and asphalt, risen around the stream Olona, that, from the Swiss border dissolves into the Milan dumps. In this underworld, never too hidden, we spread our need for activism, for brother-like community with those who love the noise, our need for distance from the homo habilis that has spread on these lands, for distance from his bigotry and from his apathy.

From the dawn of the most raw and barbaric punk, someone foresaw all of this: “The nightmare continues” … and we bathe in this great Hell called D-beat, in the Swedish chainsaw-like sound, in the irreverent and clear-headed hardcore, in the senseless rhythms of people who grew up listening to Venom, Exciter, Carnivore and Razor.

“Metalpunx” is Overcharge’s third effort, officially released on March 20th, 2020, after “Accelerate” (2014) and “Speedsïck” (2016). Yeah, we like straightforward, direct titles. The pregnancy for these 9 new songs was long but not too troubled, typical for those who find motivations and incentives on every instant: concerts (on and off the stage), tour life, hangovers at Festivals or even just at weekly rehearsals, after 9 hours at work and a dinner of stale crackers.

The dearest and most loyal friend supported us: Ciube, from Dufrense, in his Raptor Studios in Vicenza, already at work with Hobos, Slander and Destrage. He, the most precise, passionate enthusiast of valve head sound and analog processors; us, sweating like Samoans in these 6 days of July 2019.

Don’t you want to schedule everything for good? Without rush, with the precision of the Swiss we‘ve always loved and mixed with. You summon everyone interested: Mirek, from Phobia Records, who invited us at FearFest in Prague; that insane man of Dave (Angry Voice) who runs a label, a shop, an autonomous space and a little family all by himself in the middle of nothing between Dresden and Cottbus; our cousin Arca (Motron/Calimocho Autoproduzioni); a few nuts from South-eastern Asia for the tape (Shammir from Basement Rekordz); Tuby and Alina from Memento Mori for videos, teasers and fun stuff on social media; all the unfortunate persons from Olona Wasteland Punx collective, helping us with D.I.Y. merch serigraphy; Curby, for the Obscene Extreme Festival; certain Lautstürmer, from Malmö, dean of kang-punk, former Mob47 and DrillerKiller, for two release parties at the end of March.

And instead, Man is a sickly creature and all twisted divinations became reality, in a mix of Toxic Holocaust covers, a Bruno Mattei film and Camus’ “The plague”. Overcharge faced the birth of their “Metalpunx” armored in helmets, nails and various leather, gasoline tanks and scarce hydric reserves, against Humungus, Lors of the Wastelands, commanded by the fearsome Prof. Birkermeier.

Someone finds new life and purposes in tragedy for their being naïf, raw and bizarre. A lot of them surely take advantage of the opportunity to record complete discographies at the PC, purchasing a soundcard from Corporations and winking to the under-payed shipper.

We haven’t turned on an amplifier in two months. We haven’t broken a stick against the snare for a long time. The first time it happens again, a benefit will be necessary to buy again all the gear.

But adrenaline itself will pay off the wait. And here the “survival of the fittest” rule does not count, doesn’t count natural selection, eugenics or any other bullshit from wretched Hulk Hogan-like disguised wretched individuals.
Only passion counts, the desire of looking at each other in the eyes and of watching hundreds of other weirdos, sniffing sweat and sitting on the virus of tinnitus. “Keep coming back for some Black Diesel Breath”.

If, like Overcharge did, you want to write something about your band or new release, contact us.

L'articolo Overcharge: despatches from the Red Zone proviene da Radio Punk.