1. Hey there, how's it going! Well, to get this started please introduce 
yourself.

-Everything is quite good with us. Except that’s everybody leaving
Östersund  to study, work and so on. So HW will not be that active this
upcoming  year(s).

Here’s a short line up:
Skitsylen - Vocals
Jimmy - Bass
Henke - Guitar, vocals
Johan - Guitar, vocals
Arre - Drums

HW also features a bunch of other members, which appears on various songs,
 backing vocals etc…


2. So, Human Waste has been around since '99, quite a short time for such
a  big load
of releases, don't you think? As I know you don't even have a rehearsal 
place of your
own and have also only played a handful of gigs... how does it work out 
anyway?

- Actually we now have a rehearsal place, or at least we had. We moved out
 of there a couple of weeks ago. Due to the lack of interest from a couple
of  members in the band, we decided to move out until we know what to do
with  the band.
We constantly get offers of releasing records and join comps but never, or
 at least very few offers of live gigs. Really sad we think since it’s
more  fun playing live than to hang out in a shitty studio all the time.
(No  affiance to Hasse and studio 914, where the most of our songs are
recorded.  He’s a great guy that helped us a lot with everything).
We have been kind of productive maybe, but to be honest with you we can
only  say that our most productive time is when we don’t have a place to
rehearse  at. And that’s a fact, no shit!


3. I'm sure you've heard this before, but there's quite a similarity to 
Skitsystem, if not too much the music then the lyrics at least. How come 
exactly these fellas have an inspiration on you? Would you agree there's 
slowly growing a specific sound/style out of the wave of Skitsystem, 
Wolfpack and the like got rolling?

- We get that question all the time. As we have said a hundred times
before,  our first 7” (Slit dej fri) probably sounds a lot like Skitsystem
and is  very influenced by them. Our latest recording doesn’t sounds like
them at  all if you ask me. At the same time we can’t deny that they still
have  influence on us. They still are a fucking great group, which still
does a  lot of great songs! But in the end we don’t wanna be pure rip-offs
although  the most music/lyrics are done/written in the punk scene today,
it’s hard to  come up with something brand new.  We just try to do our
best, and play punk  cause it’s fun, and if there is someone out there who
wanna complain on that  we sounds like “that” group or “that” group, go
ahead, we don’t give a fuck.  There are a lot of people who also like our
music as well.


4. Your lyrics are all pretty dark and negative, are they a necessity to 
your music in some conceptional way or woould you consider writing about 
different things as well?

- Both music and lyrics reflects the way we feel. It also reflects the 
expression we get from our surroundings. Of course we could always
consider  writing about different things but in would end up in misery
anyway. HW is a  concept of dealing with these kind of issues that affects
us in negative  ways. Most of our lyrics are about not fitting in this
system, abuse of  power, boys in blue, suicidal thoughts, homeless people
and so on…but our  latest lyrics also bring up subjects like: prejudices,
mobbing, narrow  minded Christians and women abuse. Perhaps not the rarest
subjects to write  about but very important to deal with!


5. The text to "Allt går i arv" has a real background to it, right? Feel 
like telling on that matter here? Being at it, how many of your lyrics are
 based on real life experience?

- “Allt går i arv” is a true story about an old friend of mine. She has 
pretty big alcohol problems, and it’s so sad to see her getting lost. I
have  more friends with the same problems and it’s so frustrating to don’t
know  what to do. I can’t help them if they don’t want my help, so I’m
kind of  powerless.
All of our lyrics are more or less based on real life experience. I have 
been on all kind of medicine for depressions, anxiety, paranoia and social
 phobias. I feel a lot better now and I don’t take any medicine at the 
moment, which is very nice. Cause in the end you wanna be able to live a 
normal life without pills.


6. Being what is refered a punk bnd, do you feel it's importance to have 
something like a agenda
inside a band that each of the persons involved will agree to if not
submit  to? What do you guys have in common as a band and as persons?
How'd you meet  up anyway? Any odd incidents?

- We just like to hang out together, play music and drink beer. What more 
can I say?
We have all dark backgrounds that’s perhaps what we all have in common…
Östersund is a very small town, is like “everybody knows everybody”. We
meet  up on school, work or at a party or something like that, I don’t
remember.  But some of us have played punk together since 1993. First time
Arre meet  Johan on a party he puked all over him, guess if Johan was
happy, he still  gets a little mad if you remind him now.


7. Tell me about your label NEW NOISE RECORDS. Was it it about and how
much  time
do you put down to it?

- I work with it more or less every day from answering mails to send out 
trades/orders, working on layouts to records and so on…but I always do it
on  my spare time, cause I have a “real” job beside New Noise. It’s not
that I  can make a living on it, for me it’s more fun and it gives me the 
possibility to put out the music that I like.


8. How do you make it work out? I see you're mostly doing co.releases with
 other labels, anything to tell on that? Do you think it all still works
out  or is there slowly a competition-sort of tendency crawling in?

- I can not afford to release everything on my own that’s way I most of
time  release the records with other labels. You don’t have to pay the
whole  package by our self, which is the best! You also reach out more
when there  is four labels involved then you get working on it alone.
I don’t mind releasing records with other labels; it’s better to help each
 other. You don’t get monopoly on the records, but who cares???


9. There's some debate on making a living off a label or distribution and 
where to draw the line between passion and commerce. Quite dodgy
discussions  in fact, considering there's a whole lot more serious things
to think and  take care of, but it may be still relevant to those
involved. How do you  feel about this?

- People set up rules for the DIY movement that you have to follow, don’t 
ask me why I just think that’s fucked up. Fuck every rules, do what you 
wanna do. Don’t let the unwritten DIY rules stops you. If you can make a 
living on pressing or distribute punk records, I can only say,
congratulations! Don’t get me wrong now, I prefer independent DIY labels 
than Majors. To be a DIY doesn’t mean that you have to run a loss on 
everything you release. But it doesn’t means that you can make use of the 
DIY scene either. It’s all about sense and conscience.
Don’t know if I got your question right now but it was a hard question 
anyhow.


10. Whate else are you up to beside Human Waste and doing the label? What 
about the other bands you play in?

- I’m working with teenagers at a school in Östersund. I enjoy it very
much.  As you mention I also play in several bands and besides all groups
I put up  gigs and stuff like that. I’m working mostly with things that
are involving  music. Just to mention; all the other members of HW also
have groups besides  HW.


11. You've also a passion for hip hop, how'd you get into that and what's 
your opinion on the quite big rise of this once-independent music up to 
plain commerce? Also there seems to be a wide acceptance of truly dumb 
content of machismo nature and "might is right"  type attitude, agree?

- I don’t listen that much to hip-hop, I like reggae more, but I have done
a  couple of hip-hop songs. It’s fun to rap sometimes. It started with me
being  a producer on a friend’s hip-hop album. He asked me if I didn’t
waned to put  some guest vocals on one of the songs, I tried and that’s
the beginning of  it.
Many rap artists like to say “bitch” and “motherfuckers” in every sentence
 they do. They also like to boast of all their money, cars and girls.
Macho  talk is nothing for me, but not every bands are like that, “Dead
Prez” for  example a more a political band. Have you heard them?


12. "Knutna nävar"... do you really put hope in the resurgence of revolt
to  achieve change on a big scale? Isn't it a bit of daydreaming if we're 
honest, trying to blow just a little enthuciasm into
the daily despair?

- Jocke, our other vocalist made that lyric long time ago. I think it’s 
about the riot in Gothenburg. People where there to demonstrate not riot, 
but when the police act like shit they can not blame anyone else then
their  selves. We don’t think a punk lyric will change the world but
united we can  make a stand. We’re not that “revolutionary band” so we
don’t do that much  either, more than daydream from time to time. We all
have dreams of a better  society we’re all shared equal, rich, poor, black
and white.


13. I assume it's more than just music for oneself, how do you make it, 
well, more than just music or would you disagree? Has it all overrun
itself  already in some way?

- We don’t understand this question…sorry! We’re might be stupid so you
have  to explain it for us.

14. How's the CD on Hardcore Holocaust been doing? Have you got any plans 
for some touring yet or similar? What's the next steps for the human
waste?

- We just talked to Jay/HH a couple of weeks ago, and the CD is almost
sold  out now, which is really fun. We haven’t talked about a repress, and
we  don’t even think that would be necessary. “Ett 6-pack & antipolis” was
 released in 1000 copies, which is enough. Terror Threat will also soon 
release the second discography “fylla, ångest och skit = ren misär”, so
keep  your eyes open! That record will include “från generation till
generation ”,  “I väntan på socialbidraget”, all songs from the three
split 7” with: A.O.S,  Uncle Charles and Harkkorauta, songs from all kinds
of comps (Tapes, 7”, LP,  CD), unreleased stuff and some live tracks.
Next step for HW is recording some new songs for our debut CD/LP that
Yellow  Dog hopefully will release, at least what we’ve been talked about
it. Tours  and more gigs would be like a dream come through. We have been
talked about  tours for some years now, but nothing ever happens. Labels
and other people  wanna help us out, but it’s hard to get everything to
work out.
Anyone who wanna put up a tour with us, just gives us a call and we will 
come right away!!!


15. Do you guys really have a strong alcohol habit or is it more of a 
romatication?
Any thoughts on the entire drunk punk thing? Drunk with power? :-)

- Acutely I have been on alcohol meetings for my habits, but there was
never  anything serious. I think I have total control on my drinking, and
I’m not  an alcoholic. But there are people who gladly talk about how
terrible their  life is and that’s the only way out. Like being an
alcoholic would be cool.  It’s acutely really horrible that it has to go
that far for some people and  I know that isn’t easy to live that way,
always on the run for money to buy  beer and liquor.
So drunk punks who wanna “act and play” alcoholics in the age of 16-20 are
 just pathetic! Get a life!


16. So, thanx for answering this, anything I forgot to ask?

- Thanks for showing interest and your patience with this interview.
Better  late than never as we use to say to everybody. It’s so fucking
hard to  express your self on English, especially interviews but we hope
there will  be not that many misunderstandings. Don’t know what to say…if
you come up  with something more just mail us again.
If anyone else wanna know more about Human Waste, or just order a 
record/shirt check out our homepage: www.allteskit.cjb.net