There’s something special about Hardcore that goes beyond the music, the looks and the so called lifestyle. Most of the friends I’ve kept and cherished all these years are the same ones I met through the Hardcore scene. That theme seems to repeat itself over and over again in the interviews I’ve done. There have been a ton of great bands and memorable shows in the last twenty or so years but it’s the friendships that have lasted, endured and even grown stronger. This was evident when speaking to Kevin. If you don’t know Kevin by name you might know him from his music.

James: The first time I heard Beyond was when the "Dew it" demo came out. I  

remember the huge buzz and how everyone was looking forward to seeing  

you or playing a show with you. Can you tell me how you met the rest  

of the band and how quickly things came together?

Kevin: All four of the players on the demo went to high school together.  Tom, Dominic, and I were seniors and Lance was two years older than us and had graduated already.  We all hung out in the same social circle, a mix between guys from Beyond and guys that would later be in 1.6 Band.  

    We asked Dominic and Lance to join and the demo was made within a few months. Dominic and Lance were psyched about the band but weren't too psyched about the hardcore scene, unlike Tom and I who were going to CB's every weekend couldn't wait to play there.  So after the initial buzz, we asked Vic and Alan to join the band.   

    Kicking Dom and Lance out of the band was my first introduction into adulthood.  It was the first crummy thing I ever did and I was haunted with guilt until we finally did the Beyond  reunion with Dominic a couple of years ago.  It seemed like he was still hurt about it and the reunion was a cleansing of sorts.

James: One of the things that sticks out Vic, Alan and Tom all had such  

strong personalities. Did that make it harder to keep things together  

or did it make Beyond a better band?  

Kevin: Both.  Funny enough, Alan and Tom were always arguing.  Like you said, they both have strong personalities and saw things differently.  There were a lot of arguments, which is why I always found it ironic that they ended up playing together for years in QUicksand.  I don't recall Vic ever arguing with anyone.

James: Are you ever amazed at the amount of talent in the band and some of  

the incredibly influential bands you were in a sense a springboard for?

Kevin: Again, our social circle in high school was a combination of the guys in Beyond and the guys in 1.6 Band, so there was a lot of talent there from the start.  I look back and I'm amazed at how much talent I was surrounded by at such a young age.  There seemed to be something about the town we grew up in that launched a lot of music careers, not just us but others, like Captain Kirk from The Roots.  

    As far as Beyond, I could tell we had something special and that was due to Tom, Vic, and Alan being such good musicians.  That's why we stuck out.  

They weren't just into hardcore but many different types of music and that came out in our songs.  I felt very proud and lucky to be in that band and to be surrounded by such talented musicians.

 

James: One of the things that really stood out about Beyond was although you were linked with all the  straightedge bands from that era your sound completely stood on it's own. Your sound had this dark, kind of urgency about it. I hate to use the word apocalyptic but that's the first word that comes to mind.

Kevin:Well, there was definitely a metal influence.  We were all metal heads before we became hardcore kids.  That's probably why those guys were such good musicians.  You have to be good to play metal.  There's no way around that.  And we kept listening to metal, even after we cut our hair and put on Minor Threat t-shirts.  I hear some

Iron Maiden influence when I listen to the Beyond record.  I suppose that's what gives it the "apocalyptic feel" you're talking about, though, like I said, we were very positive about things.  We just tried to express our positivity in the most creative way we could, without sounding like everyone else, and without sounding hokey, which was always a danger.  

James: The shows that really stick out for me personally are the ones you  

played with Gorilla Biscuits. Did you have a special bond with them?

Kevin: Walter was very supportive of us from the start.  You can read about his first impressions of us in the Some Records release of the Beyond CD.  He and Alan shared an apartment in Jackson Heights at the time and he often asked Beyond to play gigs with GB.  We probably played more shows with them than any other band.

    Gus Pena used to come with us on a lot of road trips and he was very tight with GB so that probably had something to do with it as well. Those were fun times.  There was a lot of joking around.  It was a great time to be young.     

James: Tell me about the infamous van. Was it as bad as the stories go?

Kevin: The van of suffering.  Yes and no.  It was Tom's father's van and I have to give him credit.  I was amazed that he even let us take it on so many trips.  My parents never would've let us take one of their automobiles for a weekend in Ohio.  It did break down a few times, which caused some unpleasant moments, and I don't think it had A.C., which I think is why it received such a bad reputation.  When you had ten guys and equipment packed into a van for a ten hour ride, it was like sitting in a furnace.  

    There was one trip, when Beyond and G.B. were playing Buffalo and we had everyone from both bands, plus Gus, plus the equipment in the van, and we were leaving NYC at night so we didn't hit any traffic.  SInce there was no room in the van, I had to sleep in the wheel well, the step into the van at the side door.  It was the most uncomfortable I ever was and I think I cried myself to sleep (not very tough. I know).  Now, I look back and it's a fun story to tell but it was hell as it was happening.     

James: At the time a few better known labels were interested in putting out  

the Beyond album. What made you go with Dave Steins Combined Effort?

Kevin: Schism was originally suppose to release it.  Porcell was our biggest supporter, especially from the start, and we felt we owed it to him.  He and Tom also shared an apartment in Brooklyn and became pretty tight so we figured we'd go with them.  They had financial problems, so it seemed as if it was going to take a pretty long time for them to put it out.  That's when Dave Stein stepped in.  He had done a bunch of our shows up in Albany and was a super nice guy so we said, "Okay.  Let's do it."  

James: What was it like recording the songs for "No Longer at Ease"?

I was also curious about the title...........

Kevin: I think Alan came up with the title.  I think he got it from a poem.  I'm not sure which one.  Obviously, it reflects the non-apathetic, positive aesthetic that was expressed in our music.  It sounded right so we all agreed.

    We recorded the LP in our hometown, Holbrook, Long Island.  The studio, Sanctum Studios, was where we recorded the demo and was run by a large, bearded redheaded man, whose name I can't recall at the moment.  I remember we just called him "Red."  He kept leaving the sessions to go do coke in the back.  He was sniffing all throughout the sessions.  

    We banged it out in a week, I think.  I remember playing Tempest and Centipede a lot in the lobby.

James: So Beyond ends and within time we have 1.6 Band. Were you able to make amends with Lance and Mike?

Kevin: Lance was in Beyond, not Mike.  And yeah, Lance and I remained friends regardless.  I remember one night talking to him about it and he said to me, "How could I be mad at you?  You remind me of my paperboy."  Again, I felt like a heel more than anything else.   

James: What changed their minds about the idea of being in a Hardcore band?

Kevin: That's just the kind of music we ended up doing, probably because my voice fit best with that style.  They were playing more quirky stuff before I joined them.       

James: The landscape changed drastically between Beyond and 1.6 Band. How did  

you adjust?

Kevin: At first I didn't.  That's why I'm not so into the demo.  I sounded too much like "Kevin Beyond" on those early recordings.  It wasn't until I tried to push my voice in another direction that it started to sound interesting to me.  

    As far as adjusting to the other guys in the band, they were, and still are, the best musicians I've ever known.  All three of them are geniuses.  Everyday was a battle to keep up.  I do think the limitations of my voice helped to even things out a bit.  It was a nice contrast to the insanely brilliant music that was going on behind it.  And since I could only do such much with my voice, I also concentrated on making the lyrics as good as they could be.  I barely wrote any lyrics for Beyond but by the time I was in 1.6, I started to understand the process of expressing an idea creatively.        

James: Three Kevin moments that stick out in my mind. Two of which really  

stick out. The first one was a show you played at ABC-No-Rio.

(It was when bands were still playing in the basement.) You went on a tirade  

about jocks and the fact that some of the crowd were decked out in  sportswear.

It struck me as odd since one of the most memorable images of Beyond is you wearing that Yankees jersey.

Kevin: Yeah, I guess that was part of the aesthetic we were siding with.  It was silly in retrospect, though in my defense, I think the point of it was that there was a faction of the hardcore scene that was tired of the bloodbaths that were happening at shows.  That was the reason CB's wasn't having shows and if it didn't stop, there weren't going to be any shows in New York anymore Period.  I guess the sports jerseys represented that other part of the scene that was all about bloody pits and exercising macho aggression.  I guess at that point in my creative life, I wanted to express myself differently.  Though while in Beyond I wasn't into bloodbaths  then either.  There was definitely an athleticism to Beyond's music which is probably why sport jerseys fit so well with that scene.  

    It also wasn't as violent a statement as it turned into later.  Something changed between the Beyond days and 1.6 days that made it not so much fun to stage dive and jump around like a goofball.  You had to fear for your life and that was too scary for me.  

    I was also a huge Yankee fan while in Beyond, which is probably the real reason I was wearing that shirt in that picture.  Anyway, I've officially lifted my ban against sportswear.  In fact, anyone walking the streets of Austin these days just might catch me wearing my Yankees hat.       

James: The other is running into you one night in front of CBGB's one night  

We were all hanging out and you were piss ass drunk carrying a 40 oz.

Kevin: Was that you?  No, just kidding.  I guess like many ex-straight edge people, I went off the deep end when experimenting with alcohol.  Artie Phillie did a great piece in Vice magazine about that phenomenon.  As many have speculated, a lot of that had to do with the repression of vices and the after effects that occur years later.  It's one thing to not drink but it's another thing to wear that on your sleeve and consider drinking the most evil thing in the world.  Because later on, when you're thinking it's not such a bad thing after all, you dive into it head first, for no other reason than to prove to yourself how wrong you were.  Then when you finally come up for air, you're a mess.  

    But I have no regrets.  That was all part of the learning process.  It was just a matter of growing up, which took me a little longer than other people.

    But I don't mean to say that I was wrong when I was straight edge. I think there was a lot of great things about straight edge and I was glad I was "straight edge" during that time.  If I wasn't, I would've been robbed of a lot of great times.  

What was the third story?        

James: When you were in Beyond you were screaming but it's apparent that with  

1.6 Band you were trying to exorcisize your lungs from your throat.  

How hard did that become?

Kevin: It was a challenge to sing like I did in 1.6 Band, only because I tried not to sound like I did in Beyond.  In retrospect, I think I had a harder time singing in Beyond, only because I was younger and didn't know how to care for my voice.  

James: Okay, so 1.6 never toured but you played some great shows with some  

Kevin: Too many.  Our first show in Schenectady with Rorschach and Born Against was one for the record books.  That was when we first met those guys.  They were on tour together and they all had beards and were wearing crazy clothes.  We were freaked out. And then when they played, it just blew your mind.  It upped the ante as far as psychotic music was concerned.

    There were also great shows in D.C., Boston, and a few other towns, where we

met great people and had great experiences. But there was one show I hold dear to my heart more than any other and that was when 1.6 Band and Hell No played in Portland, Maine.  It was during the summer.  In fact, I remember picking Hell No up in Queens and it was like 99 degrees outside.  On the way up, my car blew a hose and I had to pull over.  We were all worried that we weren't going to make the show.  To keep the mood light, John Woods was entertaining us with his Star Wars impressions.  The hero of the day, however, was Rich Derespina.  You can see this footage on the 1.6 Band myspace page.  Rich actually took the gum out of his mouth and plugged the hole in the hose and my car started up again.  It was like out of a cartoon.  And then, once we made it to Portland, we played in front of the greatest group of people ever.  We hadn't met any of them before but they were so incredibly nice and supportive that it didn't matter there were only thirteen people at the show.  It was still very exciting to play for them.  And then, later that night, everyone from the show went swimming in a river way deep in the woods.  There was even some skinny dipping while swinging off a rope.           

James: What was your favorite record the band released?

Kevin: I like them all for different reasons. There wasn't one song that recorded that I didn't like and that was because I was always amazed by what the other guys could do.  I had known them all since I was 16 but they were still blowing me away.  

James: Was there anything specific that caused the band to call it quits?

Kevin: I think we just felt it had run its course.  I don't remember too much about it except sitting in Mike's car with Mike after a show in D.C. and both of us were feeling as if the time had come.  

James: You spoke very highly of them both as musicians and friends. Have you  

kept in touch with them over the years?

Kevin: I keep in touch with all three of them almost on a daily basis.  We have our own little email group where we share life stories and ask each other advice, etc..  We're all living in different places now but we've made a point to keep in close contact.  

I see them at holidays as well.  I consider them family and love and respect them very much.  

James: The next time I hear about Mr. E is on some online post. It was about  

Rules of the Fort. I'm a total sucker for stripped down acoustic  

music. But I couldn't imagine how it would work with your voice. I was  

pretty surprised how well it worked. Can you tell me how that project  

was born  and what it was like performing it live?

Kevin: In 1995, I came home from a cross country road trip wanting an acoustic guitar.  My friend, Pete, had brought along CD's of bands like Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Uncle Tupelo and the Allman Brothers.  I remember driving through the hilly terrain of the West thinking how perfectly that kind of music accentuated our experience.  It just seemed to be the right music at the right time.  And it spoke to me.  I suppose there's a certain romance attached to it that I found intriguing.  

    I started writing songs almost immediately.  Because I knew a little music theory, I was able to piece them together bit by bit.  I wrote some eighty  songs or so within a four year time.  I recorded the CD at Technical Ecstasy Studios in New Brunswick, New Jersey.     

    It was tricky to do it live because I preferred to mike my acoustic instead of using a pickup because I always hated how most live acoustic guitars sounded.  They sounded too artificial.  In a way, I had approached playing the acoustic guitar the same way I had singing in a hardcore band.  I liked everything to sound as raw and real as possible.

    I was also just one person and it takes someone special to pull off a one man show.  I wasn't at that point yet.  I think my writing was sharp at that time but my musical skills weren't fine tuned yet.  I was a hardcore singer who had to learn how to sing.  That's something that doesn't happen over night.  In fact, it's taken almost ten years.  And now that I feel like I'm almost there, I realize how much skill it took to be a hardcore singer.  

    Anyway, there were some shows that went off exceptionally well.  It was all part of the learning process.

James: How did you came to writing for Chord? Was that a rewarding  experience, channeling another creative outlet?

Kevin: I had taken a journalism class at The New School that I really enjoyed.  I then emailed Gus to see if they needed any writers.  They didn't at the time, but then a few months later, he emailed me, asking me if I"d like to write for them.  It's been fun.  I do enjoy writing.  It's a craft, like anything else, and you really have to know what you're doing to present something properly.  I'm still learning, which is always the most exciting part of the journey.

James: What prompted the move to Texas? I would imagine that being a drastic  

change.

Kevin: In ways Texas might as well be on the opposite side of the world than New York.  It can be that different.  Austin is a very cosmopolitan town though and there are places and people that remind me of places and people in Brooklyn.  For example, I went to see my friend's band at a metal club last week and I felt like I was back in New York.  The music was just as loud and crazy, and the people were just as kooky.  

    I do enjoy the spacial difference though.  I've lived in some pretty tiny apartments in New York.  It's nice to have some breathing room.        

Kevin: Twenty Four Thousand Dollars is just a continuation of The Rules of The Fort, but with a new name.  I'm just getting it going down here in Austin, but in New York I was playing with my friend, John, who is an excellent guitarist/ukulele player.  His playing complimented the songs perfectly.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to record anything before I moved.  

    Some of the songs are straight up old-time country songs and some of them are reflective of my rock'n'roll upbringing.  Lyrically, there's definitely a New York edge to them.  ANd by that, I mean there's a lot of humor and sarcasm.  I never try to take myself too seriously.          

If people would like to check some of them out, they can at

James: What do you think it is about Hardcore that stays in your soul.  

Considering most of the friends I made in those formidable teen years  

are still in bands or still in love with the music?

Kevin: For me, it was, and still is, the "spirit of youth."  That may sound corny but even now that I'm thirty eight, I still like to jump around and act silly.  That's something I never want to lose.  I just enjoy being alive.  

James: How would you describe yourself today.  What makes Kevin Egan happy?

Kevin: At this point in my life, I'm not trying to take life too seriously.  I just want "to be", with no questions asked.  Obviously, I have financial and social obligations to take care of, but after that, my time is my own and I'd like to enjoy as much of it as possible.  I still enjoying writing songs very much.  That's a pleasure I'll never get tired of.  And I also love the time I spend with my friends.  They're still what makes me happiest.    

(Interview James Damion. Images courtesy of Kevin Egan and Sara Marcel.)

Link:

www.facebook.com/pages/16-Band

www.myspace.com/twentyfourthousanddollars