NRA is a Dutch punk band coming from Amsterdam. The band began in november 1989 and appeared first with the DIY demo called "Their first Session". It may be still available if you ask the band .This demo was a reaction towards the music played at that time, that was quite metal. Gwynn, bass: " We didn't like solos ans rockstars attitude, so we started to play a punk old school, and that wasn't very popular then."

   The first album is entitled "Is this for real?" and came out in 1991 edited on Bitzcore and Semaphore. The version you can buy now is a reedition. The songs haven't all the same quality, but they announce the different range of songs that NRA is able to play, that means punk-pop,  "blowing everything else away" or both in one. Each song is energy, makes you feel good. Though it's a first album, the band has already found his thread, the one that makes NRA recognizable at the moment you hear them, that fucking particularly sound. Where does this sound come from ? Jean explains: "We are not good musicians. So, every record is about the maximum that we can do at that point. I think one of the things that’s typical why people say it’s typical NRA records, is that we always capture like a lot of energy in the way we play. If I compare to other records like a lot of records, they have like a great sound, like a message but they don’t have the energy. We have like a lot of energy. Sometimes it goes with not so good playing but anyway the records are always really energetic and it’s important. We have to learn how to play the songs and we have to capture the energy and that’s difficult. That’s always hard. I think typical NRA records has like a lot of energy. It’s also like Aziz’ voice which is pretty typical for our music." This album was produced by Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton (Descendents/All/Black Flag). NRA was quite overawed to work with this guys, maybe it can explain the quality of the sound. Anyway, it's a good start and a pretty good NRA album.

    Some EP's later, the second album appears known as "Surf city Amsterdam". The sound isn't  very good again, but as it's basic, songs get more powerful. Each time I listen to SCA, this album let appears new things which make the songs better. The recipe is the same as in the first album, fast and melodic. It's the album the band prefer among all the others. Svengus joined the band in the recording process and brought another melodic dimension and more harmonies in the guitars to the band. This time, Vic Bondy, from Article of Faith produced this album with Menno Bakker, the sound engineer of Bunt's Studio, Utrecht. They always worked with Menno since that time.

    After this one, here's the chef-d'oeuvre "Access only", in 1995,  the album of a justified recognition all over Europe. Songs like "Another day at work", "Abort feelings" or the wonderful "sex sells" show at the whole punk-rock world (not only melodic tendency) that NRA is another legendary punk band. It's the most heterogeneous NRA record as it brings 9 new songs and older EP's. About "sex sells", if Mr Feaver (drums) thinks this song is meaningful, Aziz(singer) thinks different:"This is one of those meaningless songs, they’ve already recorded the song in the studio and I came back from holidays, and I rushed in the train to the studio and I came in the studio, in the meanwhile, I’ve written “Sex sells” and I just came to the studio and I tried, and I mixed the lyrics. I wrote the lyrics, and I mixed them. I don’t know how to tell it cause it’s only big words, you know, but the actual chorus has nothing to do with Amsterdam city!! (hilarious laughs) I just mixed them and it sounded good..." There's nothing else to say that NRA stand definitely out like a leader in European punk through this one. It couldn't wait any longer. Al

  Also, an album Access to surf city amsterdam only is come out in the US on Off time records, which is Horace Pinker's drummer label..

   As NRA became bigger, in the same time of punk-rock with Offspring and Green Day, NRA's signed for Virgin because they thought they can make money with punk-rock (Virgin not NRA, that's not the game they play, well I don't care anyway). So, the fourth album "Leaded" is here and it's still a higher level from what they've done before. The disc keeps the same energy from the begin to the end: 20 songs in 30 minutes. With "Leaded", they still show they're the best without any opposition possible from other bands. Listen to "fuel" if you still doubt about that. More, Virgin put a spoke in their wheel, which is a bullshit thing, Aziz: " Leaded was retrieved two years ago. 1st January 2000. They told us they were given us the right back for the record in January 2000. And they retrieved the record in January 2000 but they didn’t give us the right back. We asked for the rights but they said they keep the record. That is very ridiculous. I’m thinking about physically going there and just going up to their manager and just fucking say like : “Remember we talk! Now you fucking smirk it happens!” I don’t know what else to do. I can’t sue them, it’s bullshit. But then, making an artist work unavailable, I think that’s against what every record company should do ! And I can’t get anything by it, it’s sort of really really fucking ridiculous." Jean : "It’s like what a lot of majors do. They keep you in their back catalogue and they hope that we, one time, have a record that sells millions and then they came up to make some money. I mean, it’s only because we never get anything for the record"

   This was the first album with a major to this day,  they're now distributed by Dialektik in France, by Konkurrent in Holland, and Gearhead in the US. Maybe it's because these guys are older, the last album "New recovery" (1999) is different than the ones before, but still fucking excellent. Songs are more rock and less punk "XYZ", "Damnation", but NRA style is still here like in "Cold War". How this evolution happened? Aziz: "I think that New Recovery was the weirdest record of the all because when we recorded it, I remember that the road to New recovery was very long and very boring for everybody in the band because everybody was like, especially Pepijn(ex-drummer) was like : “I don’t see where these songs are going to, I don’t know what they are about!” Because when you are in the practice space, you don’t hear the finished songs. We were just like practising and practising and Jean was very… like  “This is crucial this part, it’s crucial, crucial, crucial that we play it this way”. Everybody went crazy … But basically it’s the same now !"

Jean thinks : "That the thing is that the songs have become more simple. When we were younger, we did like fast chord changes, and then we went to another part and then within ten seconds, there were like a lot of chord changes. Now, we have like parts that last maybe for half minute or even a minute like in Dadada… ( Inward, 10th song of Leaded)  So, we have to get into that groove and that’s hard to play if you haven’t done it before. We have to learn how to play that. That took a long time when we worked on New Recovery and now again, our songs are very simple but in a way very hard to play"  This is also after this record that Pepijn left the band, he was replaced by Mr Feaver, after a short standing in of Slick (Hi-Dramatic). Aziz talks about Pepijn in the recording of New Recovery:"The only thing, I wanna say is that Pepijn was very against what we were doing. “I don’t see where this is going!!” Once we recorded it, he  understands why it was important to focus on stuff like that. But he wouldn’t do the same for the next record. Right now, we are very critical of ourselves, keep like changing stuff, keep on focusing on little things which seem to take everything out of proportion cause you focused only on the stupid little things. Once he heard it, he said OK. Now, he understands" Well, Mr Feaver, not too hard to learn the songs? Mr Feaver answers : "In the beginning it was. He has few tricks. When I had those things under control, I could play most of the songs. Like some songs are very hard for me and some songs already have the same drumstyle as I.  It develops myself also. But, it’s OK. I don’t know what think the others of me, maybe it's different, but I think it’s OK." So what the others think of him? Aziz : "FUCK HIM!"and Jean, laughing : "I think the songs are going OK and people still recognise NRA!"

Sven also left the band after New Recovery, and they are now 4 guys, just like when they began 12 years ago.

After three years of silence, NRA is back with the sixth and "back-to-basics" album, called Machine. Three years of silence, but not that much. The one month punky tour in November 2001 made things clearer for the new record. Aziz: "We were going in the studio also in November of 2001 when the Burning Heads called us for the punky tour. That was the exact time we were gonna record this album, so then we decided to go on tour, which was great, because we played all these songs on tour with the Burning Heads. They were really new and like spontaneous for us. I think it was a real good thing."

Jean:"We find out that these songs were good but that we were not playing them good enough. So, we spent some time after that to work on them to play them a little bit better so. So it took a few month extra before we went to the studio."

This time, the songs are really simple and go really straight to the point. Aziz:" I think the most important thing was that we needed to go back to the basics of writing good songs and making it work with just the least...We found out that a lot of the music that we are very enthusiastic about is stripped down. It's very essential, essentially simple. That's what we tried to do on this record. I think we did the best job at it because it's so stripped down sometimes. But it was scary to play that way, especially as a drummer, it's gonna be the worst thing because you hear everything you do. We worked really hard on that. And it was the same for the vocals that have a place now. I can't fuck up that much anymore. And before, this was just like this produced sound, it didn't matter because there was this wall of sound. When you start playing with one guitar, when you start playing with Tjeerd on drums who plays very basic, it's all very simple. It just strips down the music to the most basic essential punk-rock."

Machine is certainly their most simple record to now but also very energetic, yet it takes its full dimension on stage.

  Today, Access only is available in a 10 inch vinyl at the Swiss label Hannibal. This release contents the first 9 songs of the CD version.

  I didn't talk about NRA's performance on stage yet, their shows (more than 480 since their beginning!) rare very energetic, the greatest existing some fanzines say. So fuckin' true. The best for you is to move your ass and go where they play. This is it, buddy.

  To be continued...

  My days as a punk ain't over yet...