Web Exclusive: A conversation with Terror's Scott Vogel

Posted by Scott Heisel on 10-Jun-08 @ 06:56 PM

The soft-spoken Scott Vogel may not have been rubbing elbows with Ray Cappo and John Joseph in 1985, but for all intents and purposes, dude is a New York hardcore vet. The infamous vocalist spent years yelling in VFW halls for several Buffalo-based acts (including Victory Records' Buried Alive) before relocating to California to front Los Angeles metallic hardcore beasts TERROR. He recently spoke with Brian Shultz regarding their new album and Century Media debut, The Damned, The Shamed, as well as the nature of contractual agreements and lyric cribbing.

I've read a lot of reviews that really tout this album as an old-school hardcore record. Do you find those descriptions sort of futile when considering your past albums?
Well, I would say if reviews dismiss it as an old-school hardcore record they probably didn't even listen to it. I mean, Terror is definitely influenced by some old-school stuff. Like Agnostic Front and some stuff like that. And I think we'll always be like that. I don't think we're gonna get too crazy, or change things up too much. But there's definitely elements on the new record that are different than anything we ever did before. We definitely stepped out of the box that we're usually in.

If the review comments that it has an old-school feel, that's true. But if it doesn't mention the fact that there's definitely new elements and we tried some new things, then I don't think they paid much attention to it. We have some clean parts-there's just some new elements that we've never really done before, so... I don't know, I've never really worked for a publication, but I would assume some people get a Terror CD and they think they know exactly what they're gonna get and they just write a quick review without really giving it a full [listen]. I don't know if that's true.

Sometimes when I read a review of not even my band, but other bands' records, it just seems to me like people don't really get a full grasp of the record. They're just trying to go through the motions when they write the review.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't have any guest vocal spots on this album.
That is correct. There's one track toward the end of the record where Roger [Miret] from Agnostic Front... He doesn't sing; I sent him the lyrics and just had him talk about the topic of the song--I don't know if the right term is [that] we used it as a sample. He's just kinda talking in the background in one part where there's no vocals.

But definitely correct: On every Terror release up until now, there's been guest spots. We just consciously made an effort that this time we're not gonna have any guests.

That was actually going to be my exact question -- the fact that you specifically had hip-hop guest appearances on the last two releases [Mr. Dibbs and MURS on 2006's Always The Hard Way and Jedi Mind Tricks on 2007's Rhythm Amongst The Chaos EP], but now, you seemed to consciously keep that out.
It wasn't so much consciously focused on the non-hip-hop thing; it was just, we've always had guests, [now] let's just do it [ourselves] this time. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future you see more [hip-hop guests]... I'm definitely not gonna start rapping, but everyone in the band to either a huge extent or a little extent listens to hip-hop and believes that there's a lot of important things going on in hip-hop and that real underground music, whether it's hip-hop or hardcore or metal or whatever, it's all very relevant to each other. Just getting close to Jedi Mind Tricks, we thought it was cool to cross those boundaries that people build up. We'll see what happens in the future.

You mentioned in a past interview that the sort of senseless violence the band was unfortunately becoming known for was starting to die down. Is it still on a downward swing?
Absolutely. I would say four years ago when we played, I knew something was gonna happen, and that really sucked. Not every show but certain places or if we played with certain bands I knew what crowd it drew; there was gonna be something whether it was a tiny incident or something that we would have to hear about for a while. It's not completely gone...it's just the nature of this whole thing, and the aggression and loud music and stuff like that. Once in awhile, things happen, but it's definitely nowhere near the level it used to be. I'm not just talking with Terror, but it seems like in general, [there] aren't as many problems at shows. I think that's a good thing.

What would you attribute that to?
That things are better now?

Right.
I know within Terror we definitely had to take some measures and have some talks and let people know that the band is being ruined by what's going on and it's not cool. In general, I think there are [times] where people have something to prove and after a while, they [come to] realize that they're really hurting something that's important, and they back off and live a more positive life.

In the same interview, you mentioned that half the quotes on the Vogelisms website aren't true. Have you since tried to contact anyone from the site? Or maybe at least let them know to maybe add a disclaimer or something?
No, you know... I don't know how serious people even take that in the first place.

Some of [the quotes] are...so ridiculous...
In one way, it's a little bit retarded but in another way, whatever, people are having fun; I'm all for that. But I'm not gonna go out of my way to get involved in that whole world. But it's funny. I get asked about that all the time, but the fact is I know a lot of that stuff never came out of my mouth.

I think in music in general and in hardcore people take a lot of things too seriously. I like to have fun and have a good time and if people are having a good time with that, then let them have their fun.

On that note, does it bother you that many hardcore kids have this kind of caricature perception of you?
...I don't really know. [I'm] a lot of different things. I did an interview in Europe recently where I got asked a question, what do I think of people [calling] me arrogant, which just took me [by surprise]. I'm still just the kind of person that likes to go to shows, and likes to get new demos and hang out. I think if anything, I'm kinda laid-back and quiet, and if people have a misconception of me that I'm arrogant because I'm not, like, flaunting myself, that's one thing. If you put yourself out there, especially [as] the frontman of some band, you're gonna get judged and people are gonna have a preconception. I'm pretty comfortable with who I am, so if people need to talk and judge and stuff, that's fine. I'm not too worried about that stuff.





Music Video Distributors recently released that live at CBGB album. Whose idea was that?
[Sighs, laughs.] I guess... I don't know if I should be honest here, or...well, I'll be honest. We had nothing to do with that. We knew nothing about it.

That was my assumption.
[Laughs.] We left Trustkill and went to Century Media. I don't have too many bad things to say about Trustkill. [Josh Grabelle] did a lot of good things for us, but one day I got an e-mail that this record was coming out. I immediately was like, "This [set] is old. We never even talked about this." The fact of the matter is Trustkill owns the songs that we released for him, and I think now he's gonna do what he can to profit off that.

We also now have learned that he's doing some sort of "Best Of" CD which... I don't think people really need a "Best Of Terror" CD. People don't really buy CDs too much right now. If they need to go out and buy a CD which is a compilation of other CDs we've already put out... The only thing we can do in these situations are try to at least make a good layout out of it. That [CBGB] thing, we didn't have too many options to work with but at least out of this "Best Of" thing we're gonna try to make a cool layout of it. Do with it the best we can.

How much say did you have in the artwork, direction and layout of the live album?
To tell you the truth, I haven't even seen it. I know they had a different cover shot--just a live photo. I remember the shot that they [originally had] was something very far away and stuff, and I said I at least want something that looks like there's some cool crowd stuff going on. I've had a few people text message me, "What is this live CD? I've never even heard about this." It's just an odd thing.

When all is said and done, it's not bad. Terror definitely is a band that our live element is something that's really important to us. I just wish that it could've been done in a different way, where we did a real live show and recorded it properly and did a cool layout with it and stuff, but... I guess in this day and age, we've signed contracts and given our songs up, [and] this is what happens. Gotta deal with the consequences.

So does that mean Trustkill technically owns any live recordings of songs from your Trustkill releases as well?
Yeah, I guess. I don't know too much. I could be wrong here, but I guess the songs he paid for to record, [he] owns the actual songs. So if it's a live recording, or a studio recording, he can do what he wants with it.

The end of "Lost Our Minds"... Tell me that's not a tribute to Burn.
[Laughs.] It definitely is. If you break down Terror songs from the beginning till now, there's definitely... I even addressed it in the thank you list in our one record, One With The Underdogs. You can definitely pick out a few quotes in every record that I definitely took from other bands.

Yeah, because the first time I heard that, it just jumped out at me.
Well, that's good, you know? That's good that some people actually still know who Burn are. They're one of those bands who were lost in the shuffle and were pretty fucking amazing.

Are you familiar with Soul Control?
Yeah, definitely.

[For a] pretty new band, they're definitely carrying the torch as far as that style of hardcore goes.
Yeah, you know, not to take anything away from them or any other band, but... A lot of people are like, "Bane sound like Burn. And Soul Control..." I can hear the influence, but a band like Burn, it's very hard to even come close to. But I appreciate their love for hardcore and not playing generic stuff, but... I hear people, they're like, "Oh, you're gonna love this band. Check 'em out, they sound like Burn." And I put it on and I'm like, "Eh, I hear it a little bit." They don't sound really like Burn.

From what it seems, the type of hardcore Terror are known for works incredible for working out at gyms and fitness centers. Would you ever consider doing a hardcore compilation specifically for working out?
[Laughs.] Ahhh...no, we haven't. But I think when people need to work out, that means they need that blast of energy and something that really fires them up, so that means we're doing our job. alt




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