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Interview: One Minute Silence
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One Minute Silence
Questins Answered By Yap (Vocals), Massey (Guitar), Glen (Bass).
03/03/00
Interviewed by Brian Webb
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Related Links:
Official Website
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PRP: Lets start from the beginning. How did the band get together, bearing in mind
that you all came from different backgrounds?
Yap: All grew up together in our mum’s
wombs.I moved over here 12 yrs ago to England, hooked up with Chris Ignatiou
about 8 years ago, met Glen 5 years ago, Eddie 4 ½ years ago. Chris Split,
Massy (new guitarist) 8 months ago and here we are. There you have it, like
that.
PRP: Is this your most stable line up?
Yap: This is it. This is one minute silence for the next 15-20 years until we
all fall over.
PRP: Massy – How did you find it adapting to one minute silence?
Massy: – Excellent, I mean it’s like
very easy. It was meant to be. It really was.
Yap: He Gives a great blow job!
Massy: I got down on my knees every night
PRP: Massy - what bad habits do the band have.
Massy: They are all fuckin idiots!
PRP:
How would you describe one minute silence to someone that has never heard you
before?
Yap: I don’t know – heavy, intense.
PRP:
So what bands do you compare yourself to or draw influences upon?
Yap: Everybody. From Ac/dc to Pantera, rage,
anyone we’ve ever liked. Van Morrison. I grew up on AC/DC, prince and
traditional Irish music. People cant here my influences; it doesn’t
necessarily have to come out in the songs.
I heard Rap one day, and went ‘Oh! I like that’, so I went about my way of
doing it, but I never put on a rap record ever. Y’know, I sound like whoever I
sound like and I don’t give a shit. This is the genre I love.
I’ve said it a million times, blues bands sound like blues bands, metal
bands sound like meal bands there is always going to be influences there, but
when bands come out and say ‘We’ve got our own sound’, well hello! You
don’t. Some of them are only
early twenties and haven’t heard all the bands in the past, I know from 20 yrs
ago, listening to metal. Led Zeppelin, Rage are Led Zeppelin with Rap.
It’s as simple as that, everything has been said and done.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, I mean – I want more than
one porn movie, they’re all the same - but I don’t give a shit.
PRP:
How did the name One Minute Silence come about?
Yap: Sneaked up on me and bit me on the
knee.
When someone important dies, we have a one minute silence.
We just thought it’d be a cheap plug.
PRP: What bands are you listening to at the moment?
Massy: Chris Cornell, Radiohead’s my
favourite band, incubus. I’m waiting for the new pantera record, new deftones.
PRP:
Speaking of Pantera, You have described your new album as your ‘Vulgar Display
of Power’, does that show your confidence in the album?
Yap: The album is second to nobody.
To be quite honest with you, I don’t give a shit what anybody says.
I know what the album is, I’ve always aspired Vulgar Display of Power
to be the best metal album ever written, you can’t get better than that,
It’s as good as it gets. Y’know
we’re not as heavy as Pantera, but what we have done - in our on right is as
good as vulgar display of power. 14 serious tracks on the album.
We never set out to write album fillers. We’re already working on album
no.3. It won’t be released for 2 more years.
I hate these bands that go ‘We can write a song in a day’- yeah, but
they’re shit. I can write 10 songs a day – but they’re all shit.
You can get lucky and write a good song in a day, but that’s rare.
We spend a lot of time on our songs, maybe they’re not all class, but
the point is we want them, we think their class the 4 of us.
If we’re kicking it a rehearsal room and one guy doesn’t like it then
its scrapped cus when you get to 4 guys liking it then there is the chance 4
more will like it. We try to get out the best material that we can and that’s
set like a precedent for me –
vulgar display of power and hopefully we have achieved it.
PRP:
Do you feel Massy has imprinted his own unique style into the upcoming album?
Yap: Massy ruined our album. Haha. Nah
course he has. Massy grew up listening to us and the first song he wrote with us
was ‘food for the brain’ and we were like shit man this guys got a lot of
talent the chemistry was so right.
PRP: So how do you go about writing songs?
Yap: I decide which songs get used cus I
write lyrics for it. Massey and glen come in with riffs and I use two words –
Good or Shite!
PRP:
Did you consider having a hidden track on the new album as this seems to be the
current trend these days?
Yap: we have hidden a track on the next
Metallica album.
Massy: It just sneaked in there.
Yap: No hidden tracks.
Yap:Actually We have hidden 10 tracks your
never find any of them.
Massy: we were gonna put out-takes and stuff
but it never happened cus we were at a deadline.
PRP:
When you write a song. Do you write for the pit.
Yap: yeah we aim for the pit
Massy: not all the time.
Yap: NO. We aim for the pit
Massy: we’re also writing stuff and its an
awesome song. People will stick it on at home and in the clubs as well.
Yap – We know that the pit will go off. '1845' and 'rise and shine' are
designed for the pit. The opening line of 'rise and shine' – "my god its
good to see you" was designed to kick in. And 'holy man' too was just the
dynamic with the melody and kicking into the heavy chorus and then obviously
'food for the brain' is just for the pit. The last song ‘words’ I started
mixing it with an Irish ballad, just tones…..in the end it just kicks into a
big violent piece of music. So that was like 5 minutes of atmosphere just to get
them killed in the pit!
So it is all in the pit.
PRP:
Who’s idea was the pit crew?
(pit crew is a number of hardcore fans who dominate the pit and came on stage
with the band at a recent london show)
Yap: – It was the fans, everyone is
welcome on our stage. When we headline we are putting a ramp up onto our
stage…the audience own the stage, they pay for the tickets. Bands seem to have
forgot that.
PRP:
you recently shot a video for holy man in Toronto. Could you explain the video
to us?
Yap: its just a performance video really,
the next video will be ‘fish out of water’. That’s our main single and
that will be a concept video.
PRP:
what is your favorite song to play live?
Yap: Mine is becoming ‘Rise and Shine’
right now. Because of the reaction we’re getting. From when we first played it
at the LA2 show and then the machine head tour. We were playing it all this week
and people were immediately singing ‘Oh my god it’s good to see you!’
back, it was just so instant. As
soon as I started everyone knew what was coming.
They were all there with their hands up singing along. It was awesome.
It’s a brilliant feeling that people know the song when they’ve only
heard it one or two times.
[OMS Bassist, Glen – Enters the room]
PRP:
The album is being released in America first. Are you going to be concentrating more on America this time around
Yap: Well, we have to as a band. We want to
continue our careers, there's no good breaking Britain.
We want to play like Aerosmith one day and be doing it our whole lives.
The company wants money back – and the only way to get money is if you
break America. You don’t break America, you disappear.
We will continue playing music in Europe as long as we can, but will
never become the band we want to become.
PRP:
Are you excited about the upcoming London Astoria show which will be your
biggest headline show in the UK to date?
All: yeah – we’re well excited.
Yap: Just hope it sells well – I think we
have the audience now. It’s
amazing what marketing does for you. We have more people come see us than we
have albums in the shops. I think
it’s going to sell out.
PRP:
Do you feel the support slots and slipknot have significantly helped to boost
your profile in the UK?
Yap: Without a doubt, yeah. I mean, One
Minute Silence have done it all off their own backs. We’ve supported bands
before, like Pitchshifter. But they
weren’t big enough to raise our profile too much. Machine Head was the first proper British tour, we’ve got – and
that’s a year and a half after our first album. The amount of fans we won over from that tour was unbelievable.
We have never got the big recognition because we’ve never had the high
profile tours. A band like Limp Bizkit go out on 4 Korn tours. We cannot compete
with that. If we got onstage with Limp Bizkit they are following the wrong act. I couldn’t give a shit who they are.
PRP:
Are venue promoters still weary of booking you due to the ill-fated show at the
London garage in which fans rioted?
Glen: There’s a few.
Yap: I don’t think we’ll ever get back
with Mean Fiddler (Venue / Festival Promoter), So no UK festivals.
PRP:
Are you playing any of the European or worldwide festivals this year.
Yap: We got Rock AM Ring, Rock AM Park and
warped tour in the US .
Glen: We got the Iron Maiden Thing coming up
Yap: Yeah, 16th June, Earls
Court. One Minute Silence + Iron
Maiden with Alice Cooper in the middle.
PRP:
Do you regard yourself as a political band?
Yap: Are you against Racism?
PRP: Absolutely
Yap: Then you’re political too. It’s as
simple as that. In the future
we’re going to create a group called ‘New Dogs, New Tricks’, with people
of young ages of all countries. Not so I can preach, everyone will have the same
amount of input. This is only if I have financial backing.
PRP:
Glen have you got to know any of the girls from Kittie yet?
Glen: yes, They are really nice girls.
Seriously. Fun. If you want to know if I have slept with them. No I haven’t.
PRP:
What’s behind the new album name ‘buy now saved later’?
Yap: the album cover will have a girl
covered in money with a bible in one hand and an apple in the other. Apple being
the way of temptation and the bible the religious way. Buy now saved later,
Choose your road and do what you do.
PRP:
Yap, you have been quoted as saying “I love spunking onto tissues and leaving
them under the mattress for the next band” – has any such antics occurred on
the current tour?
Yap – spunk everywhere. No we say shit like that. Its just all tounge and
cheek. I have a wank like the next guy. Fuck it. I just say stuff like that cus
its funny.
Glen: No. Its True
PRP:
Who came up with the idea of truth or bollox on the website?
(see oneminutesilence.net)
Yap:I wanted to reach kids with political
statistics and facts. The political stuff your gonna read and think this is
bollocks cus its so obsurd – but it’s the truth.
PRP:
Anything you’d like to say before we leave you?
(Cue weird noises from everyone)
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