Feaver, it was not to hard to learn the songs of Pepijn (ex-drummer for 10 years) ?

Feaver (drummer) : 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, the others, what do you think of Feaver?
General laughs
Aziz (singer) : FUCK HIM ! still laughing
Jean (guitar) : I think it’s always hard because Pepijn had a certain feeling. Every musician has a different feel to things. But I think the songs are going OK and people still recognise NRA! (laughs)
A: We worked for a good ten years with Pepijn.  Too much noise here…Aziz is talking about how Feaver joined NRA He literally learned  with the four of us. He really played drums, so he has a really weird style but he developed it in that same band with the four of us for ten years.

NRA really created its own sound. Though every record sound different, people still recognise NRA. How do you explain it?
J: We are not good musicians. So, every record is about the maximum that we can do at that point. And there’s also like maybe a two or three years for the way of songwritting, it moves a little bit like you pick up other influences and so the songs change in between the records, and with each record we learn to play a little better. So, it’s also one thing why they sound different, but basically, we are still the same people so this sound is typical like still some different NRA things. It’s also like Aziz’ voice which is pretty typical for our music.
F: But it’s the same for me. I never go one road, you know. After having did it for 12 years, you’re gonna work another road, so as not to get boring. You wanna develop it.

New Recovery sounds more rock than your previous records. Is it something you wanted or once you heard the finished songs, you said : “ Oh Shit! What have we done? ”
A: Yeah, exactly! It’s exactly “what have we done?”
F: Merde! (In French, shit = merde) laughs
J: (takes his head with his hands and says with a crying tone): What have we written?
A: 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 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 (laughs)
J: I think 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.
F: For me, New Recovery was very weird. Because Jean called me and said like: D’you want to play with NRA?” So, I was listening to the old records, and I said to my room mate: “Oh fuck! I can’t play that! I can’t play this stuff!” And my room mate was pussy like: “Fuck it you know! Just say you can play it and go ahead!” (laughs) So, Gwynn (bass) gave the tape of New Recovery and I put it on and I was like: “This is more my style” But, what are those songs, it’s so weird but I played the songs again, played it again and again and after ten times, I was really like : “Fuck!! Yeah! I wanna play this stuff” So, for me, it was actually the weirdest record, the one I can do better than others.
A: 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 was very, you know, 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.
J: 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 it’s always like the records are 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.

You said that you didn’t see where the songs where going in the writing process, but I thought that your way to write songs became more instinctive with years…
J: This has always been very instinctive but it’s very hard to judge if you write a song. If I write songs, sometimes I think these songs are bad, and then I’m to the practice space and i think: “Yeah! That’s my favourite song:” Sometimes, I think this song I’ve written is very good, then I listen and say: “Well, it’s not bad but it’s nothing special”. We don’t know very much about music, it’s all intuition. And it’s hard if you don’t know a lot about it, it’s hard to judge your intuition. On New Recovery, there are songs that are maybe four years old, that I put away cause I didn’t like them. But they kept coming back, sometimes they popped up in my head. I listen to this stuff 2 or 3 years ago and that were really good songs. We had forgotten about it. You know, it’s very hard to judge.
F: Sometimes, we have recorded stuff in the rehearsal room and I think it’s really brilliant. Then, some of my friends listen to it and they think the contrary. That’s weird…

About your lyrics, there’s not  really a message, Aziz, you said that messages are stupid…
A: Everybody should just experience lyrics and feel. I never want to know what lyrics are about from a band I listen to. It’s myself, my personal. I like when I listen to a record, to sing along and it’s like: “oh, that’s so cool!” how it sounds, the feeling this brings to me. It’s amazing. I think that’s really cool. Sometimes it’s disappointed when someone tells me like: “Oh, no! You’re not singing.” It’s really disappointed to me. Don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know. For me, it’s more like singing, but I don’t only write all the lyrics. Jean writes. On this record, I think it’s probably more than half. I have to sing other people lyrics and on old records, Sven wrote some lyrics too. I have to please myself in someone else’s lyrics, and sometimes it’s hard. I think most singers want to write their own lyrics. They have a very important message or something.
J: I think it’s also like a lot of lyrics on Leaded. I think basically lyrics are just words to make the music sound good. But some lyrics really mean something, but for instance a lot of lyrics on Leaded are just words to make the music sound good. A song like “Bunk”, if somebody can tell me what it’s about because it’s just words to make the music sound good.

It’s really hard to find a story or something like that in your lyrics…
J: yeah, but it’s not that important. Maybe lyrics are important for some people, but the most important thing is that they make the music sound good.
A: Yeah, that’s it. It’s just how I sing the lyrics, you know. It’s only things like: “Whaouh! This lyrics so fucking heavy, so dancing!” Just to the sound of music, and now, “god, it’s so fucking incredible” You can get a meaning or something by lyrics, and that’s even better.

Why did you do the cover of “In a free land” (Hüsker Dü). Cause it’s sounded good or for the message?
A: I don’t have a good memory…
Gwynn (bass): We were asked to do a participate on a record, so we did this song. When we recorded it, it sounded so good. Most of the time, we don’t do covers or not for a long time.

I heard there will be covers of X and the Saints on the new album
A: We don’t know if they will be on the record. I don’t think so.
J: No. I think, it’s nice to play live but not one of the most interesting thing to record…

Maybe just to make them rediscover for other people?
A: I think we’re gonna do a live record, we could actually put those songs to put in other people attention towards this music.
F: We never gonna play them as good as the original.
A: So, it’s gonna suck (laughs)
F: It’s punk for yourself !(laughs) Who’s gonna listen to it?
A: It could sound good…

Do you think you would have written "Sex sells" if you lived elsewhere than in Amsterdam?
F: I think so, I didn’t write it but I think so.
A :  I think this one of those songs that are meaningless, well, I don’t know how we came up…
F: But it’s not meaningless, to me, it’s not meaningless..
A: It’s just something I have to confess. I came back from holidays. I usually propose all these lyrics…
J: After the record, we record !!! (laughs)
A: I mean, 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…
F: Since then, it’s my favourite band, you know ! (laughs) It was a good shoot for another one!!
A: I mean that’s almost like the band Agent Orange with “Bloodstains”, they wrote the song on the way to the studio, they wrote the whole song, came to the studio, recorded and that’s their biggest hit. It’s one of the best song ever written. It’s an amazing song.

I heard about the problems of rights for Leaded. What about now?
J: It’s not a clear situation. We have given the rights to nobody. So Virgin don’t have the rights, but they paid for the recording, so it’s complicated. But, legally, we still own the rights, because we never gave’em to someone else. We have never signed the paper…

I was just received the new Sugar & Spice catalogue today, and for NRA, Leaded is no more available in CD…
A: No. It 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.
J: 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 they came up to make some money. I mean, it’s only because we never get anything for the record.

Do you sill hope that Leaded can come out on Dialektik (their label in France)?
A: If we get the rights, I think it will happen, yeah.

In the song new recovery, you sing: “My days as a punk ain’t over yet, the scene that I never was a part of “ So, what’s wrong with you with the scene, or the punk scene?
A: I think a scene, the word scene, a scene is a bullshit thing. I think all scenes must die, cause it’s just a bunch of people who claim they have the same believes or ideas. It’s all the people who claim that there is a scene, you know, most of them, they come for a better place with their little fucking scene. They’re full of shit anyway. I think there never was a scene because if I look back now and see how many people  from who screamed about the scene like: “They are punks, they are nobody!” They were always talking about the scene and the scene… so I think all the people that are talking about the punk scene and scene and scene in general are full of shit. That’s why I sing: “Who’s your new messiah? Who do you gonna look up to now? And who do you gonna scapegoat?” Who do you gonna trample in your heard of the scene.
F: I think Aziz  is very sane!!(/scene) general laughs
A: For me it’s something I needed to say.

C: So, the recovery works well!
A: Yeah, exactly! It was something I needed to get out of my chest. Usually, I’m not so much..., like I said with lyrics, I don’t need to get something out… but sometimes I need it. I think this is a really important one for me.

You asked Jay Robbins (Burning Airlines) to produce New Recovery, why this didn’t happen?
J: He was working on another record… I don’t remember which record it was…
G: Yeah, Discount
J: Discount and he couldn’t have the time to produce and mix the record. Also, he already heard Leaded and he thought : “well, they don’t really need me, they can do without me”

I think he likes New Recovery…
J: He likes New Recovery a lot, he didn’t like Leaded as much but he really really likes New Recovery. The last time I spoke to him, he said that “ I hope that maybe we can do something on the new record, or guys, maybe we can record something together” But, he really likes New Recovery. So, that’s cool !!! (laughs)

I talked with one of the guitarist of Oil yesterday (I forgot his name!), and he said that NRA was a sort of father for the punk scene in Holland ? Do you agree with that?
General laughs
J: He was joking
A: I think it’s because all those guys of Oil, one of their first punk show was NRA…

Yeah, it’s exactly what he said…
Yeah, for most of the guys in Oil, I think, all those guys now, in Rotterdam, younger punk people… They all say : “This show’s one of my first punk show” When back then, there was maybe the Crivits, but really, there were, in the beginning, there were no melodic punk. There were more like straight edge. There was nobody playing melodic punk, if there was like a punk band playing, usually they asked us…
J: Green Day
A : All the bands like VEGAN, NOFX…
J: And there was certainly a scene we were never part of like the whole melodic punk, I think. But I think it’s also because we listen to new bands and we like them. We try to help them as much as possible, by getting them opening for us for instance. Sometimes, people start a band, they think: “Oh, NRA, they sell a lot of records, then these guys are rich, and they don’t need others jobs…
F: And they don’t work…
J: So, sometimes, you know, it’s a little different than you think. It’s just stupid, cause they don’t know.
A: The best one I heard actually is, well, I heard the singer of NRA started a shop because his band failed. He started a shop to sell punk. That was the funniest I heard so far. He failed to play punk, so now he’s selling punk a shop. That’s great. How stupid people are..
J: But we really like Oil, so we try to set up shows for them as much as possible and we hope that, maybe for the new record, we can take the band Oil for a tout in Europe. I was in studio, I mixed their record. We try to help them cause we like them. I mean, if you like a band, they don’t care about being rich and having a lot of money, they just want playing…
A: Just like the Burning Heads…

We are talking about the Burning Heads reggae album…

F: I don’t like it too much when punks are playing reggae because I like black music, but it’s better if it’s played by black people because they have the feeling. But the Burning Heads do it pretty well and I also like most of lyrics in the reggae songs. That’s not bad at all. It’s good reggae for punks.
Like Clash or Stiff Little Fingers…
F: Yeah Yeah  Yeah!!!

Can you talk of  your label Records Witch?
A: Records Witch has not evolved anymore, it’s just to sell stuff I do with my friends. Actually, when I started the shop, it sort of gave me records to sell and I could keep it for the shop to build up the shop and there was a payback for what I invested in the label in the first years. We put up like Seein’ Red, or Human Alert. Stuff of friends. In the end, it was basically to help the start of the shop. I don’t want too much have a label…

Jean, what’s exactly that solo project, Copymaster?
J: It’s not really a project, it’s old songs that I’ve recorded after having written them, I played them at home, so as to listen to that stuff and one time, there were these guys from Rotterdam that we know very well and they had like a label and they asked me : “I heard about the songs that you…”
A: They had heard the songs because I was drunk in my house and in the middle of the night, Jean was like: “Listen to this!” and I played the tape of the songs that Jean writes…
J: In the end, we went to do like a 7 inches. And because of the 7”, I started to play it live, and I did some shows but it’s not really a project because I don’t want to take it too serious. I don’t wanna make anymore records, but what I think is that I already have a side name, and I’m just gonna put all the recording stuff for free on internet so people can come on internet because I only have like 3 fans, so…
A: Three guys who have nothing else better to do!  (Aziz laughed for 30 seconds…)

Do you think people can compare French and Dutch punk scene?
F: No. But there’s not a country that you can compare the punk scene to each others.
J: I don’t even think there’s a punk scene in Holland. There are bands that are considered punk in Holland that we don’t have any connection with. We don’t play with them, we don’t like them as much. We’re not interested in what they do, and it’s the same for them, they’re not interested in what we do. There’s no such thing as a scene. And, in France, we also know people, a lot of people in the scene in Rennes, Mass Murderers or Tagada Jones. It’s like pretty different than the Burning Heads. We know a lot of people. We don’t have the view there’s a big scene. It’s just people who do their thing.
F: Like in Barcelona, they listen to others kinds of music than in Madrid. Every part in Europe has a different thing and some of those countries, some of those parts, well they say, this is my taste, i like it better than other places. So I think there’s no scenes if there’s a scene. If you talk about a scene in my city (Rotterdam), there’s for 80% posers and the other percent playing in bands (laughs). There’s nothing to be proud of. I think that could be the same everywhere.
J: I mean there’s a lot of bands that are in the punk scene now or in the punk scene like 4 years ago, just because punk was popular and they moved on to others things…
F: It’s like those guys who start a band because they think they can get chicks. And that’s how NRA started (yeah, that’s it, funny boy!) But I mean, those guys are serious. They think they’re gonna get rich, they’re gonna get the hottest babes...

Feaver, Jean and Gwynn go to set up stuff for the show.

A: I think it's like Gwynn that has been in punk bands since 1981 (the year I was born if you care.) or 1982. Like when he was 17 or 18 or something like that. He 's been in a punk band ever since and stuff.  It wasn't like a trash band like really fast hardcore stuff. Which is now very well of it. But those people think it's invented today but trash hardcore has been around since the early eighties too. Bands like Lärm who are from the same city as Gwynn...

Do you think like Feaver and I that punk is no more dangerous?
A: I think it is. Punk is like a counter-culture, and of course a sub-culture. The definition of punk cannot be given cause this means that somebody comes up with the definition for punk-rock. Everybody wants to find it. Everybody wants to say: “No! I think punk rock is this! You should have that or leave this out!” It’s a very personal thing. I think it’s one of the only types of  music that’s like that. I mean, Jazz was punk music. That was dangerous. They had a fight every night almost. Punk was that way but not anymore. Of course, we're experiencing that too in this moment, we have some recognition, it’s also more convenient with stuff, etc... I think, punk was originally something to make think and shock people. And punk still has that element.