Skate or die!
As the name suggests, Cerebral Ballzy probably won’t be winning an Ivor Novello Award anytime soon, but then when does that matter? Five guys from New York, their main achievement so far has to be wrestling a little-bit of hardcore back from the Scott Vogel-loving alterna-jocks, spouting things like "I wanna see 100 stage-dives per songs" as a room of tough guys beat the living crap out of each other.
Looking like the avenging ghosts of the chain-wallet wearing scuzzballs who used to inhabit Brooklyn‘s street corners in the '80s before Giuliani cleaned them out, Cerebral Ballzy play fast, loud, snotty hardcore just the way it should be. Proper throw-backs in almost every sense, their riffs barely ever consist of more than 3 power chords and their lyrical topics usually stick to easy-to-get things like eating pizza, pulling nose-slides, running away from cops and generally getting wasted.
Although the rest of the music world seems to want to shoehorn them into the holes left by legendary and inventive early hardcore acts like The Bad Brains and Cro-Mags, the band these guys most remind me of has to be early Suicidal Tendencies; a group who could totally get away with singing about people's dead mums without having to contextualise it. Simply put, Cerebral Ballzy are making hardcore fun again.
Cerebral Ballzy - 'Causing Havoc' by Tim Chester NME
You’ve guys have been over in England a lot recently, what are you enjoying about it?
Yeah, I’m enjoying it a lot dude. It’s rad dude, you know, super fun...
What do you like about it?
Ermmm, the girls. I don’t know the kids are just down you know? Always willing to hang out, drink, party and listen to good music. They’re just chilled kids, what can you do?
You guys been skating much?
Not this leg of the tour unfortunately as it’s been wicked cold and shit, but we do skate. Last time we were here we skated a shit load. There was a skate shop in Camden with a dope ramp out the back that we skated, and we found quite a lot of cool spots actually.
The road thing is pretty sketch though. Cars just come at you from all different directions.
You’re probably the first and only hardcore band to be signed to Moshi Moshi, how’s that working out?
It’s going well. We’re releasing our single at the end of the month, and we’re stoked. They have a super-good roster, not the thrashiest things around, but they do their own thing. What can you do, you know, we’ll thrash regardless.
Last time I saw you guys, you were playing with Trash Talk, those dudes are crazy. Any cool stories?
They go absolutely nuts. The last show we played with them was last night, and the kids just thrashed hard – I’m still recovering from it, sort of.
Go on, what’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at one of their shows?
The craziest thing I’ve seen at any show was this one we played in Brooklyn not long ago. We played with the Black Lips to like 500 kids in a dilapidated warehouse in Williamsberg, and it was just nuts – lots of girls, lots of kids and a lot of fun.
In terms of gnarly, gnarly, we’ve seen fights, you know, quite a bit of drugs. I’ve even seen a girl get eaten out at one of our shows once.
Ewwwww. Has it ever got completely out of hand?
We just played a gig in Germany where it got pretty nuts. Some guy poured a beer down my ass while I was in the crowd, and I totally bugged out and mushed like five dudes. That shit got pretty gnarly.
It sort of reminded me of a show we had in Oakland that was just like a fight the whole show. It ended up with this chick crying because one of us called her a fat ass.
OK. On another point, who’s better, Agnostic Front or Youth of Today?
Oooh dude, you can’t be doing that dude. That’s like a gnarly-ass question I can’t really answer that. I kind of want to say Youth of Today, but that would be a bit wrong. I can’t answer that one.
How is the New York hardcore scene? We haven’t heard of a really good New York punk band in ages.
Ermm, yeah. There’s a quote saying that we’re the New York scene, I mean that was kind of taken somewhat out of context, but the New York bands who are really thrashing are some of our friends who no one seems to know about. Bands like Thriller that a lot of kids are totally stoked about.
The problem is a lot of these bands are way to strung out. Not on bad shit or anything, they just can’t seem to get it together. Too many other outside influences and stuff. What can you do?
Last one – why should people buy your next single?
Because it’s one of the raddest things to happen in a bit. I think we have a lot to say and a lot to present. This is just a hello from Cerebral Ballzy, so why not meet us now rather than later, because you’re going to meet us.
Also the packaging is dope.
Cerebral Ballzy will be celebrating the release of their new single 'Insuffcient Fare' with a show at XOYO on Thurdsay. Should be a big one.
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