After years of traveling through space and time punk rock has
accumulated loads of useless barnacles on its underbelly making it slow, heavy,
and nearly unrecognizable from its original form. A myriad of worthless musical
offshoots that are parasitically feeding off of the punk movement have left
people confused as to what that word even means anymore. In walk London’s
Scraps. These three tattered young men have taken on the wearisome task of
scraping these worthless elements from their music and are stripping down punk
rock back to its fundamentals. By doing so, they have succeeded in resurrecting
those exhilarating qualities other British groups like Eater and the Damned
possessed back in the late 1970’s. Scraps have taken it back to where it
started; making punk rock lean and mean once again.
Interview
by J Castro
Let’s start out by telling me what
everyone does in the band:
BOBBY: Scraps is Liam Rudy on guitar
and lead vocals, Bobby Passion on bass and backing vocals and Kris Hood on
drums and backing vocals.
You are all in other bands
(Miscalculations, Gaggers) yet you said Scraps formed out of boredom. Is Scraps
a side project for you guys?
BOBBY: Scraps is not a side project at
all. When I say "out of boredom" I meant bored of everyday life,
routines like going to work, etc. but also a bit bored of the music scene.
Don't get me wrong!! There's loads of cool bands here in London playing ‘60's
garage, power pop, rock & roll and so on but there isn't too many young
bands playing straight forward punk while jumping around on stage. We felt
there was a gap to fill there.
Is there a growing and supportive scene
out there for the type of music you play?
BOBBY: In the band it's actually only
Liam that's English. He's brought up in Camden, London while Bobby is from
Sweden and Kris from Poland so we just met here and London is great! So much to
do and there's always gigs to go to. London is full of opportunities; you just
have to make sure you're ready to grab hold of them.......
You list as some of your influences The
Clash, The Dead Boys and the New York Dolls. Tell me a bit about the first time
(if you can recall) you heard some of these bands and how it affected you.
BOBBY: Personally these are the three
bands that got me hooked on punk music. New York Dolls with their style and
ground breaking music, Dead Boys with a nutter as a front man, weird lyrics and
playing with more power than most bands ever will manage to reach. And the
Clash; just perfection! How can you not get hooked? Watching the videos of
these guys makes me so sad I will never be able to see that live.
In your band bio you say you guys
listen to a lot of different things that influence your songwriting. Name one
record that you think some Scraps fans may be a bit surprised you own and
enjoy.
BOBBY: We can be influenced by anything
around us, rather than just other bands.
The three bands mentioned above are of
course pretty obvious and we wouldn't be playing the type of music we are if it
wasn't for them. But personally I listen to loads of different things. Django
Reinhardt, Gram Parsons, Johnny Horton or the minimal synth band Autumn just to
mention a few. I also listen to a lot of obscure, cheesy, melodic 60's teenbeat
music. In one way or another I’m sure these bands influence me, I’m just not
sure how or in what way.
Also in your bio you say: “as a band
you have the power to make so much more than just music.” Can you elaborate on
this a bit?
BOBBY: As a band there is so much you
actually can do and sometimes it feels like bands forget that. It could be just
going mad on art work, for instance we had Marco from No Front Teeth Records
make 150 one of a kind handmade sleeves for our 7" vinyl. I mean, you
don't see many album covers like Andy Warhol's banana anymore, do you? Also, as a band you got the power to
say something that can either change a person or make them feel better about
something. It doesn't necessary have to be political but if a person can relate
to it I think it's great.
Do you ever feel some bands waste their
influence they have on kids to make a real difference in their lives or improve
society somehow instead of just taking their money and buying mansions and
private jets?
BOBBY: Absolutely! Without a doubt for
example One Direction could make this world a better place if they could be
bothered to. We write songs about silly things sometimes but this manufactured,
commercial stuff is so bland. You have seen bands changing the world before, in
many different ways but I wonder if we ever will see that happen again.
You recently did a video for the song “Waste
My Time.” Can you tell me a bit about
it? Was it hard to pick a song to do a video for?
BOBBY: “Waste my time” is one of our favorite
songs to play but also sums us up very well. We're not here to waste our time,
we don't have time for bollocks, we're just in for a good time and if you're
not... well, see ya later ha ha!
No Front Teeth Records recently
released your debut 7”. Did Marco
and NFT have a part of reigniting the punk scene in London a few years ago? It
seems that any good band that comes out of there lately is connected to The
Gaggers or NFT in some way or another.
BOBBY: I don't have words for how
thankful we are to Marco and NFT!! They just released our debut EP and as I
mentioned before Marco did these amazing handmade sleeves for us. He's been
helping us out in every possible way, when it comes to filming, recording,
everything! And the amount of cool stuff they put out on NFT is unreal! We are
lucky to have this label in London. They put out anything cool really, so
sometimes they put out bands you’d never heard of and the next day they put out
the Stitches.
Where are some places people can go or
log on to and get their grubby paws on your music?
BOBBY: Best place to buy our EP is
obviously at one of our shows! But if you can't make it, you can first listen
to it at our bandcamp: https://scrapslondon.bandcamp.com/
and then order it online from No Front
Teeth: http://www.nofrontteeth.co.uk/
What’s in the future for Scraps;
touring, more recordings?
BOBBY: We got a few London shows booked, one
supporting the Vibrators. We’ve got enough material to record a full length,
which we will start soon. Touring, well, that's
what we love doing! So at the moment we're looking into a couple of mini tours
around Europe and for next year if everything works out, USA west coast!
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