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During my stay in Norway in November 2011, I had the opportunity to meet a few people from the local hardcore scene. After having befriended Gustaf and got familiar to his band GIANT, it seemed like a good idea to organise an interview in order to know a little more about this guy and his band! Check this out!

Hey Gus! How are you? How's life been treating you lately?
Life is good. We released a demo cassette last fall, did our first GIANT shirt this winter, and have a few awesome gigs coming up this spring. So it's good.

So you play the guitar in the hardcore band GIANT. What I know about your band is that it's based in Oslo, that its members all support a drug free and cruelty free lifestyle, and that so far you've released one hell of a demo tape. In order to complete this brief presentation, what else can you tell me about GIANT?
It's true that GIANT members are vegans and vegetarians. We're not a fully straight edge band though. Three of us are straight edge, Andreas, Petter and I. Eirik and Anders aren't edge.
Petter, Andreas and I tend to X'up at hardcore shows, and we often wear our Oslo City Straight Edge varsity jackets at shows and when we play with the band, so I know a lot of people think we are a straight edge band, but we aren’t fully.
We all live in Oslo, but I’m actually the only native Oslo citizen in the band. Andreas and Eirik are from a city up north called Trondheim, and Anders and Petter are from a tiny village an hour north of Oslo called Maura (it’s the same place where Oslo’s only live playing straight edge band Evolve are from). We all met though the hardcore scene in Oslo. I've known Andreas since the early 2000's. We run a site together called ocstateofmind.com, which is basically a blog where we post upcoming shows, photos, interviews and articles. If you wanna find out what's going on in the Oslo hardcore scene, that is the site to check out.

Speaking of the tape, why did you choose this format rather than another one? It seems like these days a lot of bands put out stuff on tape, I'm not 100% convinced about it as far as quality, but I do understand that some do feel nostalgic about the old days when making your own tapes was like the most valuable thing you could do in your life! So did you also get that nostalgia or was there another purpose behind the tape release?
Tape is the classic demo format. Period. I can't say more about that. I can most definitely say that I have a nostalgic feeling for tapes and tape decks. My brother and I used to go from flea market to flea market and buy cheap old school walkmans and cassette decks. For "normal" people these don't have much value, but for us they do.

Additionally, you've got your own Bandcamp page where you decided to share all the songs of the tape. I've always backed bands doing this kind of music sharing action. But as you give people the possibility to download the songs from the Bandcamp page, didn't it overshadow the tape release?
I almost feel the opposite. We basically sold out our first 50 copies of the tape by the first day it was out, so due to the heavy demand we had to make a second round of 50 more tapes. That's what’s so awesome about the hardcore scene. You can't find many music scenes in these digital days where people have that passion about collecting music on a physical format. I'm of the opinion that all music should be available digitally and free to download. If you like it, you should have the opportunity to buy a physical version of the record. Owning a record on tape, cd or vinyl is so special and awesome. Ever since I got into hardcore punk and hip hop as a young teenager in the early 90's, nothing has beat the feeling of going to the record shop, buying a copy of a record that you like, opening it at home, reading through the cover inserts, and sitting down at the record player really listening to it and enjoying it. That feeling is so amazing and should be valued.
I think it is really important to have both options available, free digital download and physical format for sale if you wanna buy the record.

As a band, what are your main influences? Music wise and lyric wise? Some quite old stuff came to mind when I first heard the bunch of songs you recorded, I thought of bands like SIDE BY SIDE and WARZONE for instance. In the booklet coming with the tape, there's a picture of Andreas (I think it's him...) holding two records, including an UNDERDOG 7inch, which I assume is also an important reference to you. Also, is that fair to make such associations to bands from the late 80's/early 90's?
Yeah, I took that photo. He's holding an ANTIDOTE 7'' and an UNDERDOG 7". I guess you can say it's true that we are inspired by a lot of the mid and late 80's NYC bands like WARZONE, MURPHY'S LAW, CRO-MAGS, UNDERDOG and STRAIGHT AHEAD.

When we met at Andreas' place, I had the vague feeling that hip hop was a pretty big thing for most of you. I might be wrong though, as not all members of GIANT were around...so I wanna know if other subcultures and musical styles outside of the hardcore niche are considered to be important within GIANT's identity and helped shape GIANT's sound. Judging by your singer's flow, hip hop must have been added to the mix!
For Andreas and I hip hop has always been a genre that we've listened to since we were young. Real hip hop has a lot in common with hardcore. They are both genres that came from the streets. I had a discussion with Mr. Wiggles from Rock Steady Crew about this two years ago. He’s a really awesome and inspiring person, a pioneer in the hip hop scene, a vegan, and truly a guy with a lot of knowledge. He told me that back in the day (I assume late 70s, early 80’s) it was normal in NYC for hip hop acts and hardcore bands to share the scene. I find this very interesting. It shows that the two music genres originally had a lot in common.

What do you do in your life beside playing in GIANT? Do you spend a lot of time with your band mates? Basically what are your other interests?
I work with clothes, and have a clothing brand with my brother and a friend called Mikstape. So I spend a lot of time with that. I'm really into sports and working out! I do a lot of cross country skiing and snowboarding in the winter, and love running and being outdoors in the summer. I also have an old VW beetle from 1968 that I’m restoring and working on.
One of my biggest hobbies and passions is photography. I spend a lot of time doing this, and I always have a camera with me. I have a tumblr account where I put out some of the photos that I take. Check it out here: http://seelikegus.tumblr.com/

How's the scene in Oslo? It seems to be well-organized, as there's even an official website for the Oslo hardcore scene, that "OC state of mind" blogspot. I've also heard of the "Out of Step" mag, which seems to have a wider coverage than strictly hardcore. What about the places, the venues? Is that easy to put on a show?
The scene in Oslo is getting bigger. There were a lot of new faces at the latest shows, which is great! Right now there are a few good venues here, more than there used to be a few years back. I guess you can say it’s getting easier to put on shows now. I remember six years ago when we put on the DOWN TO NOTHING show and 30 people showed up. I don’t think that would happen today.
The ocstateofmind.com blog was started in order to contribute more to the hardcore scene, and in order to spread more info about shows. We felt like the Oslo scene needed a place on the net where people could check in and stay updated on hardcore shows and what was going on in the scene.

Next one is related to some lyrics, so I hope you'll be able to answer it for Andreas, who is the author of these lyrics. Don't be surprised for this one, I'll play the devil's advocate somehow! Haha! So...there's a song called "Do The Right Thing" which is about living your own life in an independent way and not following someone else's rules. That's more or less what it's about. And then at the end of the thank you list, you can read "Go Vegetarian", which sounds like an order and thus comes contradicting the "Do The Right Thing" message. Don't get me wrong, I understand the urge of abstaining from eating meat and consuming responsibly, I'm also a vegetarian. But isn't it a little contradictory?
I think it's important for people to find their roles in society and make their own decisions. I guess that’s what Andreas means with the lyrics too. Make your own choices. We will always encourage people to go vegetarian. Whether you wanna follow it or not is up to you. We’re not gonna judge you.

What are your plans for the future? Are you planning to put out an LP? I remember you told me once you were thinking of touring Europe as well.
I really want GIANT to do a European tour. That would be really fun. When the time is right, we’ll most definitely do that.
We’re planning to put out a 7”. We don’t have any release dates planned yet, but hopefully this will be out this fall.

This is the last question, it's one I ask at every interview: can you give me your Top 5 hardcore records of all time?
It would almost have been easier if you had asked me what bands I'm listening to now. This is so hard and I’m sure that list changes every time I get asked that question, but I'll try. In no order...
WARZONE – Don’t Forget the Struggle, Don’t Forget the Streets
CRO-MAGS – The Age of Quarrel
STRAIGHT AHEAD – Breakaway
SUPERTOUCH – The Earth is Flat
CHAIN OF STRENGTH – True Till Death 7''

Thanx for your time, Gus! And I hope to see you again soon!
No problem. I'm always down for a hangout in Switzerland.

Interview : Bastien

Plus d'infos :

Label : Autoproduction

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Site Web : giant.bandcamp.com

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