Interview with Runnin Riot

From 2/2/2001 and published in Nosebleed

It would be difficult to ignore the stir that Belfast’s RUNNIN RIOT have made in such a short time. From an elementary foundation of punk and oi, the band has developed a really solid stock of melodic punk gems, skinhead anthems and street rock attitude. Having now seemingly played everywhere from Michigan to Llandudno (!!!), they’ve honed their live presentation even further and serve as a guiding light for the Irish punk underworld. Prior to their “Blast from Belfast” extravaganza in the Temple (2/2/2001 with Decoy 47, Mr Nipples and the Dangerfields), Nosebleed finally managed to get it together to conduct an interview which has been a long time coming....

Present were vocalist Colin and guitarist Simon.

BOZ - A topical thing at the moment would be the deal with TKO... can you run me through how that all happened?

COLIN - Well, it was really through Ken Casey... we played with them (The Dropkick Murphys) in Slattery’s when Ken wasn’t there... and apparently Matt and the others thought quite a lot of us and told Ken about us... They came back and we played with them again in Cork and in the Music Centre.... Ken liked the album, spoke to Mero about it..... The ins and outs, I have no idea what the deal was... I don’t know what changed hands or whatever... they released the album... it’s some sort of collaboration that Ken’s running with TKO... It was a joint release with Flat Records and TKO and they paid for us to go to the States and that... that’s what we got out of it... I mean, we got one box of albums.... no money changed hands at all.
BOZ - So it was more of your normal punk label agreement rather than signing the dotted line... ?
COLIN - Ah yeah, there were no signatures or anything...
BOZ - The reissue of the first one in the states... when did that happen?
COLIN - It was released around July... it was like a month and a half before the tour.
BOZ - Was that reissue always the intention... I thought you’d hooked up with TKO to put out...
COLIN - Well, what originally was planned was that he was going to release the album. According to those guys it was hard to get in the states and there was a lot of interest in it, so the original idea was to rerelease the album with some bonus tracks that weren’t available on the original album, with new artwork and that, but because we were so fucking lazy we missed the deadline.
BOZ - Have you had any feedback from that yet???
COLIN - There was... two weeks before Christmas Ken rang and said it was going well, but there were no numbers or anything to talk about... he was to get back to me... That was a week before Christmas and I haven’t heard from him since, so either he’s bought a mansion with the royalties off it or it’s not going at all and he’s fucked off with us...
BOZ - I take it from what you’re saying that you have very little involvement in the business side of things... Do you want to keep it that way?????
COLIN - Yeah...
BOZ - How do you feel about being involved with TKO?
COLIN - Well TKO put a lot of money up... our flights alone were over £2000 to the states..... I mean advertising-wise, all the fanzines that we saw in the states all carried Runnin Riot adverts and stuff... Maximumrocknroll, all the big ones all carried them... so they seemed to put quite a lot of money into it, you know...
BOZ - It seems like a pretty big risk to take...
COLIN - ...for an unheard of band really in America.....
BOZ - You’re probably only really known in print...
COLIN - ...Yeah, exactly.
BOZ - ...What about in terms of the bands they already have on that label... do you feel you fit in there well??
COLIN - ...No... well Yes and No... I mean, a lot of the bands that are on TKO pull a streetpunk, Oi type crowd but I think our music is... not completely different, but ours is more sort of a back to the ‘80s style Oi, whereas theirs is... all the bands on TKO seem to have this particular sound... I don’t know, it all sounds the same.... in saying that, it’s all good, but a lot of the bands that are coming out... there’s maybe 4 or 5 bands, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in their music at all... it’s unfortunate like...
BOZ - When you were playing over in the States, in terms of the bands you were playing with... I know Beerzone were on the tour, and the Dropkicks... who else did you play with?
COLIN - ...The Vigilantes. they were like a young band... they were all around 19 and it was like a poppy type punk but it was really good... it’s like, he’s got a really distinctive voice and that. I think they’re a fucking great band... it’s all out punk, but catchy at the same time... We played with the Authority, an Oi band from California who I thought were very metally, but you’ll find that with a lot of the American stuff... I think they’ve lost the plot a bit to be honest with you.

BOZ - What about the new record... I heard the tapes of it a good while ago so I assume It’s been recorded a while at this stage... Is that something else that missed its’ release date or been put back??
COLIN - Yes and no... what happened was... it was recorded in March... we had an agreement... well not an agreement as such... with Mero... we just took it for granted that he was going to release the new Runnin Riot album... then we went to the states, but Ken had wanted to do it as well and I think Mero had a bit of a problem dealing with TKO with the first album... so what we’re going to do now is release 4 of the tracks off the recording on a single... a split single with... maybe Ex Cathedra or perhaps Oi Polloi and we have another 4 or 5 songs that we’re working on at home, so we’re going to record them and release the album, again, probably with Mero.
BOZ - And from then on are you going to look at maybe working with TKO... at least I assume they’re in a better position in that they’re not a bedroom label??
COLIN - ...well of course it is... I’m not knocking Mero in any way like... but they put a lot of money into the releases and that and I mean... we’ve been with Mero a couple of years now ... and I know we’ve only done the one release but we’ve done various comps and that and anything that we’ve done tour-wise has been off our own back really....

BOZ - Back to the subject of touring - how long exactly were you out for???
COLIN - .....six and a half weeks in the states
BOZ - That’s an awful long fucking time to be on the road???
COLIN - We were home for two days and then we were in Europe for a week with the Dropkick Murphys again.....
BOZ - ... how much of that was actual gigging???
COLIN - We did 36 gigs in 42 days... we had roughly a day off a week... we flew to Boston and then there was a van... like a people carrier... a 15 seater job, and for the first 10 days... the first ten dates were with the Dropkick Murphys and Beerzone and the Vigilantes so we had a van of our own, and they supplied the driver and that... and they supplied all the merch and that for us, so the driver sold the merch and that as well... then they decided it was costing too much and one of the vans went home and ourselves and Beerzone ended up sharing a van for the rest of the tour, and there was an American guy driving for Beerzone who they’d met on the previous tour.
BOZ - ... So all merchandise, the t-shirts ....and the kind of rain jacket type thing.. were you like ‘What the fuck is this?”....
COLIN - Yeah, it was obviously aimed at the American market... I mean you’re not going to see many skinheads around Dublin or Belfast in a Runnin Riot rainjacket...
BOZ - ... It seems like a real roadie jacket or something... Did you sell many of them? ....
COLIN - Eh, no... even in America...I think we sold... perhaps 20 in the whole tour.
BOZ - From all those dates is there anything in particular that sticks out .. memorable incidents or anything particularly bad that happened?
COLIN - I don’t know... crowd-wise it really opened our eyes because we were playing in little shitty towns with one street and the Dropkick Murphys were pulling fucking 2000 kids from nowhere... it was amazing... then when we went on our own it was back to the fucking norm... like us and Beerzone playing to fucking 60 people in big cities... we played in Chicago the same night as 7 Seconds and we had 16 punters watching us... it was good, Beerzone had a fight live on stage...
BOZ - What was that, just drink psychosis?
COLIN - Yeah, they were a bit drunk...
BOZ - What about you lot?
COLIN - Well a few of us had little fall outs...
BOZ - Did you find that just being in a small van for that long with that amount of people gets to you after a while?
SIMON - Yes...
COLIN - It certainly got to Truesdale...
BOZ - That was a very firm YES...
SIMON- Colin just got to everybody...
COLIN - I wasn’t the one Fayzer had to break the bottle over... Our American driver was going to hit Truesdale at one stage... slammed the brakes on in the middle of a busy road, to which Truesdale replied, “But you started it Bob!”....
BOZ - Well I take it that there’s a lot of incidents that in themselves aren’t important but... with a lot of it resultant from being in such close confines, do you think that next time it comes around you won’t let that happen, I mean, did you learn anything from it?
COLIN - Yeah... don’t go to America for fucking six and a half weeks with £50 in your pocket...
BOZ - Is that all you bought with you?
COLIN - Well I had about £250-£300... but I mean, that was gone in a few weeks and we were basically living in McDonalds because it’s all we could afford...
BOZ - So you didn’t make any money off it....
COLIN - Did we fuck!... are you kidding... you’re having a fucking laugh!...
BOZ - Well, obviously there was some sort of plan laid out by the Dropkick Murphys, I mean, were you completely relying on the merchandise they gave you?
COLIN - No, what happened was Ken had paid for all the merch and he wanted that money back before we made anything... which is really fair enough... we were paid ten dollars each a day... which is like the fucking equivalent of six pounds....
SIMON- Begrudgingly...
COLIN - At times, yeah... I mean we don’t even know what we were paid at night for any gigs... the guy that was driving the truck for the Beerzone lads collected all the money from all the gigs... in saying that, it didn’t cost us anything... we were driven all the way across America, we were put up in Hotels... the majority of the time... almost every night...
SIMON- We had opportunities to stay in peoples houses but sometimes you’d have to drive to get on the road, so we’d be half way to the next destination... otherwise it would have been cheaper to stay at other peoples houses...
BOZ - OK, what about Europe then??
COLIN - Yeah, we were back home for two days, then we played Glasgow, Wales and 3 in Germany - Uberhausen, Hamburg and Potsdam, just outside Berlin... we took our own van... well Denzil drove the van across and we got £100 a night plus whatever we made off our own merch... once we came home, that merch was ours... I’ve fucking hundreds of shirts at home...
BOZ - First time in Germany??
COLIN - As a band, Yeah...
BOZ - What did you make of it because the sort of music you’re doing is probably really popular over there??
COLIN - Yeah... I mean we played Germany and basically the whole crowd in the 3 venues were skinheads... you get the odd other punter, and obviously the Murphys were pulling big crowds...
BOZ - Would you prefer to be in a situation where you’re not just pulling skinheads??
COLIN - Ah yeah... Of course, yeah.... that’s why I love playing squats and places like the centre and that...
BOZ - Yeah.. I ‘d guess that’s probably more natural because the Warzone centre in Belfast is like home ground for you...
COLIN - Yeah... I mean... Virtually no skinheads watch us in Belfast.

BOZ - When you started out and you were playing in the Warzone, because a lot of the bands associated with the place previously were more crusty bands and whatnot... Was there any uneasiness or suspicion there??
COLIN - When we first started basically yeah because... well the people in the centre had known me from gigs and that and known Keith, because Keith had been in Monkhouse... obviously, you know, everybody fucking believes what they read in the papers about skinheads and that... and they looked at us strangely at the start, but once they heard what we were singing about, they realised, you know... and now, if I wanted a gig in the centre, there’s absolutely no problem, you know.

BOZ - OK, I want to talk about line-up, because line-up seems to have been a problem with you... it’s like fucking Spinal Tap or something
COLIN - You are having a fucking laugh... aren’t you...
BOZ - well... things fell into place eventually.... This must almost be the most stable line-up yet...
COLIN - Probably..... yeah, I’m sure it is...
SIMON - Well, Fayzer joined just before we went off...
COLIN - Chris was in the band quite a while too...
SIMON - but he was in before I joined .....
BOZ - So do you have any idea of the statistics of how many drummers, how many this and thats you’ve had???
COLIN - No..... I’d say that we’d break the 20 mark anyway... all in all... we were thinking of having a reunion gig but I don’t think we would find a stage big enough...
BOZ - Are you not worried that somewhere along the line you could have another Runnin Riot... like a Bay City Rollers situation... if you’re ever really famous there could be two different bands... one constantly off in the states and stuff...
COLIN - Of ex members.... nah... I wouldn’t think so...
SIMON - Chris and Gary and Glyn could get together and do a tribute band...
COLIN - Glyn wasn’t in the band either... he just recorded one track with us to help us out...

BOZ - In terms of what’s happening in Belfast at the moment... tonight is another 3 Belfast bands... is that the main core of what’s going on there at the moment?....
COLIN - there’s a lad putting on gigs in Belfast but unfortunately, the support bands are always the same... and it’s the 3 bands that are playing tonight...
BOZ - Is that basically it?....
COLIN - there are other bands but... they’re different styles of music... I mean... Dagdha’s one
SIMON - The band The Dangerfields that are playing tonight... their dream is to play 365 gigs a year... and they’ll play any gig anywhere... like they’re playing Galway on the 7th of February..
COLIN - A fucking Wednesday night... the guy phoned and said do you want to play on a Wednesday night in Galway... we’ve been through that before in Galway... And the other lads, Oops!, they’re on Terri Hooley’s label, Good Vibrations... it’s started up again... Terri Hooley’s actually their manager.... He still runs the record store up in Belfast... he does like reggae disco’s and that too, DJing and that...

BOZ - I just want to get a rundown of your released material to date because maybe some people reading this might not know about the compilations etc.... I know you were on the Ruts thing...
COLIN - ...The Blitz tribute... we did “Warriors”... that was through Tony from Red Alert who organised that, the new TKO sampler, that REJECTED volume 2 that Mero did... it’s just an old song that we did when we were doing our very first recording... we’ve a track coming out on SELF DESTRUCT records in Glasgow... it’s one of the guys from the Destructo’s... it’s one of the tracks off the new stuff that you’ve heard... the GG Allin cover...

BOZ - One thing that just springs to mind that I forgot to ask you about the states, did you find that with the Dropkicks assumed Irish connection... did you have people from the crowd who wanted to talk to you about whatever because of that???
COLIN - Every cunt and his fucking dog is Irish in America... I’m not joking... either Irish or Italian, but obviously at our gigs the crowd was 100% Irish.... we actually got some nob coming up to us in fucking... where was that one...
SIMON - Madison...
COLIN - Madison, Wisconsin...
SIMON - That was a great gig.....
COLIN - Myself and Fayzer were sitting having a pint outside the venue... it was like an open air thing at a student centre and this punter comes walking over and he says “You lads are Runnin Riot?” and we said “Yeah”... he put his hand out and shakes hands with me and shakes hands with Fayzer and that... Fayzer happened to glance up and he had this badge on his coat... it said IRA... green white and gold... and Fayzer says to him “What’s that all about?”... and he says “Oh, that’s the name of my band”.... so I said “You’re having a fucking laugh son, aren’t you” .... he’s going “No, no, no” ...and he has an album...recorded on like, a CDR, and the first track on it’s called “I Want To Join The IRA”... this guy’s never been to fucking Ireland in his life...
BOZ - Did you actually get a copy of this???
COLIN - No......
SIMON - One of the Dropkicks got a copy of it...
COLIN - ...and to top it all off, he’d invited us back to his house afterwards for some free Guinness... so we get back to his house and there’s 200 other punters there... what, like, a glass of Guinness each... and he had a big cellar and he had gear and all in it and he asked us to do a bit of a gig, so we went up.... we were a bit drunk by this stage and we did about 5 or 6 songs.... and this other band appeared then.... first song they did was Skrewdriver... so at this point we legged it.

BOZ - Ok, there’s this thing going on, it’s been quite visible since the late ‘90s... a revival of older styles of punk... do you think that’s acredited to globally popular names like the Swinging Utters and DMs or do you think it would have happened regardless, a lot of these bands have been knocking around a good while....?
COLIN - ... Bands like the Swingin Utters now, they’ve been going for years... they’ve only sort of become big within the last 5 years but they’ve been going for years before that... I don’t really know what it’s down to... I’d put it down to good publicity and that through their labels... a lot of their labels are the likes of Epitaph and that... fucking enormous... they’re selling stuff all over the world. If it hadn’t been for TKO, Flat or whoever, there’s no way that 4 pissheads from Belfast would ever be able to afford to go to the states for six and a half weeks and tour around.
SIMON - How did the first Runnin Riot, Dropkicks gig come about??
COLIN - It was through Mero, in Slattery’s... I think it was part of the condition that he would put them on in Dublin... that Runnin Riot got to play with them....

BOZ - Do you feel that there’s a lot of contempt towards what you’re doing... like unearthing something that people might have preferred if it remained buried, you know like, if you read stuff in fanzines that really gets to you?
COLIN - Oh you mean like that cunt from Nosebleed who said we were Oi by numbers...
BOZ - I went back and read that after you mentioned it... that’s not what it says....
COLIN - Naw, we haven’t really got anything bad.... I think through the last couple of years we’ve got a really strong following in Dublin now... I mean, when we first started we were doing gigs in the basement of the Chimaman... and we had a gig... ourselves, Skint, The Steam Pig... you could write down the faces that were going to be there before you even went into the bar.... you knew that, but you still did it....

BOZ - How long exactly has the band been going now?
COLIN - Three, three and a half years...
BOZ - I would have thought it was more than that....
COLIN - The album was recorded in ‘98, I think it was ‘98...
SIMON - I think it was ‘97...
COLIN - .... ‘98, I think .... I’m pretty sure it was ‘98.....

BOZ - Just before I came down here I was reading in the Belfast zine RIOT OF YOUR OWN that when you supported Sham in Dublin you weren’t allowed in the backstage area because Pursey was meditating - True???
COLIN - .... we were sitting on the sofa at the top of the stairs in the Temple Bar Music Centre and the guy comes in and says....
“Alright lads, youse are on... five minutes”... so we go
“Ok, yeah”... down the stairs, round to the dressing room where you have to go through to get on to the stage and there was like a bouncer type security guard at the door...
“Yeah, what do you want lads?”... we were going
“We’re on stage, we’re the support band”
“Well you can’t come through here”
“We have to come through here to get on stage” and he said
“No, Jimmy Pursey’s meditating”...
to which we left... I was like, “Aw, there’s no point in this”... Never meet your idols...
SIMON - After we finished I got my guitar, leads and stuff and went downstairs and everybody was in there and Jimmy Pursey was in there with the rest of the band and he said “How did it go” and I was like, Yeah, it was grand... we were shite as usual... It was a bit sloppy , but I didn’t see him meditating or anything...
COLIN - This was before the gig... apparently he was meditating while we were on stage

BOZ - There’s an example of what I was talking about earlier ...smarmy bad press... yer man Stuart Bailie did that review
COLIN - .... I read that.... in Hot Press
SIMON - I don’t think it was Stuart Bailie...
( some debate over the offending hack )
COLIN - I read the review... that guy wasn’t at the gig... he couldn’t have been at the gig to write the shit he wrote... People in Skrewdriver shirts in Dublin? I dunno... he was either not at the gig or doing very strong drugs...
BOZ - or else he spent most of the time up at the bar....
COLIN - Yeah.....prick.....

BOZ - What about immediate plans in terms of getting this album out, what’s going on?
COLIN - ...I don’t really know...
SIMON - Immediate plans - To get back to Belfast with the producer in one piece..
COLIN - ...Hopefully we’ll get a bit of interest... I mean we did the tour in Germany with the Murphys... made some good contacts.... the lad from MAD promotions was chatting about taking us out... and I’ve got a friend who plays in a band called the Soul Boys who sets up gigs around north Germany... around Hamburg area, Berlin, and he wants us out in April... and he does gigs in conjunction with MAD... so hopefully we’ll get about a forthnight, or whatever, tour.
BOZ - They’re the ones who did the Oxymoron “Westworld” tour?
COLIN - ...Yeah... they’ve brought out all the biggish bands. I mean... they did the Cock Sparrah gigs in Europe..... The Business and what have you... The guy from Knockout... he was also interested in doing a single with us... that’d be worth thinking about..... obviously the more labels you’re on, the more people are going to get to hear of you.
BOZ - and the handy thing about no contracts is that you can do that...
COLIN - Exactly, yeah...

BOZ - One last thing... do you ever have serious problems getting down here... every time you bring a crowd... and you usually turn up about 10 minutes before you’re on... What’s that down to... trying to babysit while being pissed yourself?
COLIN - Ah yeah well, you know the story yourself Boz... normally I am drinking, but unfortunately I’m driving tonight...
SIMON - It’s easier when Colin’s not drinking.......
BOZ - Do you think that’s part and parcel of the whole thing... dealing with that and accepting it?
COLIN - Yeah, it’s part of the joy of Runnin Riot, isn’t it... I mean,we went to Bradford to do a gig in the 1 in 12 club... we did two and a half songs and I fell off the stage and fell asleep in the middle of the dance floor... we were headlining a benefit night in the 1 in 12... after that I kind of wised up a bit... not much, but a bit... I mean, the whole time that we were away, I did the Merch most nights... certainly I was drinking, yeah, but not to the extent that I would normally do.
BOZ - Did you find that when you were away you kind of went mad for the first few days and then kind of slowed down?
COLIN - Not really, no... I went more mad towards the end of the tour...
SIMON - Who was it... either Steve or you... giving out about me for drinking every day...
COLIN - It wasn’t the fact that you were drinking every day, it was the fact that you’re on the dole and you’re the only cunt who had any fucking money...
SIMON - That was my hundred pound loan from the dole which is why I’m only on £40 a week now...
BOZ - What, the dole lent you money to go on tour?
SIMON - Well, they didn’t know... it was hardly any sort of Back To Work thing...
BOZ - Well it was in a way.... it was a career move?
SIMON - Well, This is Runnin Riot you’re talking about...
BOZ - You never know... what you’re doing is a very popular style of music a lot of people warm to it live, you get a really got atmosphere going?
COLIN - Ah yeah, I mean all our songs all have, for want of a better expression, like, a Football chant chorus - things that stick in peoples heads... a song like P.T.A.... it’s a new song but when we play it tonight, guarantee people know the words...
BOZ - Do you think you’ll get a stage where you can maybe make a bit of money off it... I mean a band like the Dropkicks aren’t the most accessible band to the general public... they’re not integrated into the greater field of popular music like, say, the Clash?
SIMON - In the punk scene in America they’re huge...
COLIN - They’re massive... I mean, being based in Ireland, it’s never going to come to that...
SIMON - being as unorganised as we are... They’re very organised... they know what they’re doing, they know where they’re going, and it’s all self done.....
COLIN - It is a business... they’re doing it full time.... they get four hundred dollars each a week, whether they’re touring or not...
BOZ - The thing I noticed about them getting off the bus last time they were over, the two bands were all wearing the same Dropkicks hoody tops.... all the same kit bags... you expect them to have numbers on their backs like a fucking football squad.
SIMON - I think that’s down to.....the time we went out, you just ran out of clothes... everyone was wearing BEERZONE shirts... it was just like “Oh, can I have a Beerzone shirt... here’s a Runnin Riot shirt”... Is it clean?
BOZ - What has happened with you recently has been the best deal any Irish punk band has been given.... has that given you any sort of ambition or do you have your sights set anywhere?
COLIN - It doesn’t give us any ambition... but it sort of opened my eyes because when the band started... it started as a laugh, just to have something to do, and it’s just gone on, and to realise that there’s people all over the world listening to us now.... it’s hard to believe...

Contact
RUNNIN RIOT
36 Walnut Street
BT7 1EN
Belfast N.
Ireland

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