Planet Loud caught up with Karl from Born From Pain before their headline gig in Stoke-On-Trent to chat about touring and how they keep motivated after a decade together.
Planet Loud – First off if you could introduce yourself please.
Born From Pain – I’m Karl Fieldhouse and I play guitar in Born from Pain.
Planet Loud – How has the tour been going so far?
Born From Pain – It’s been good. I mean it’s the U.K. which, honestly, isn’t the best place for us to play. We are a mainland band but it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve played a few places we’ve never played before like Stoke and Wolverhampton and a couple of other places.
Planet Loud – You’ve played on a lot of impressive line ups. Do you have any favourite memories from these tours?
Born From Pain – I’ve played with a lot of bands that are important to me you know? Like one of the first tours I did with this band was with Biohazard, who were one of the bands that made me want to play music. We’ve toured with Hatebreed, Napalm Death, we’ve played festivals with some of my favourite bands as well. When you play with bands that you looked up to or who influenced in some kind of way then you have that thing of “man, I remember going to see you when I was 15 years old”.
Planet Loud – You’re known for your energetic live shows. Is it hard keeping this level of energy after nearly a decade?
Born From Pain – Occasionally it can be, I’ll be completely honest, if any band says that it is no problem at all than I think they’re lying. Some shows are easier to play than others and that has nothing to do with the amount of people that are there, it’s if the response is there. We can play to 50 people and it can be crazy and a lot of fun, or we’ll play to a 1000 people and no one’s moving and it isn’t fun. We try and put our all in every night. We do this because we love doing it and it’s not a case of doing it for money or any other reason, it’s because we love playing. We love touring, and seeing different countries and speaking to different people. You know this is our lives so it isn’t that hard to put the energy in you know.
Planet Loud – Do you find there is a big difference between the audiences at festivals as opposed to smaller gigs?
Born From Pain – It’s a give and take kind of thing. You feed off what they give you, they feed off what you give them so size wise it doesn’t really matter. We’ll play to 20 people all the way up to 15,000 people, anything and everything we’ve done it and our attitude is always the same. Occasionally it is different; I mean I love playing to a small crowd because it’s really intimate. You can have someone like knock you over! But I love playing to a festival crowd where you can see everyone’s fists in the air. It’s two different things but the feeling is the same.
Planet Loud – You recently parted ways with your drummer Roy, who is going to be replaced by Igor Wouters (ex-Backfire!) after this tour. Was it a difficult transition to make?
Born From Pain – Actually it was really simple. Roy is a very talented drummer, not only within hardcore or metal, but with everything he does. I mean he studied music at school so he really knows how to play the drums, he knows about theory and he said he wanted to expand his horizons and try to play some different stuff which we understood. We thought that finding a new drummer would be hard, I mean finding a good drummer is probably one of the harder things to do, but it was actually quite a seamless change. Backfire! had just finished which was one of Igor’s old bands, so he knows this kind of music and was on the shortlist of people to ask. We asked him and he had to think about it because it’s a lot of commitment to touring, but he said yeah after a couple of weeks. I think we practised a week after he said yes and he’d learned around eleven songs and could play them pretty much flawlessly so we were very happy with that.
Planet Loud – So there’s no hard feelings between you guys and Roy?
Born From Pain – Yeah we hate him! (laughs) No we understand because for some people this band is like a commitment. The core of this band has always been Rob on vocals, Dominick and myself and the core has always been very solid. With Roy leaving it was a shame because he’s such a good drummer and we obviously get on with him as well, but at the same time it just isn’t for some people. It’s all good though we wish him the best for everything he does.
Planet Loud – You and other members of the band come from the Belgium H8000 scene. Is the scene still strong?
Born From Pain – There are still shows. I mean there’s Ieper Fest, I can remember going to that for the first time in 1997 and it was awesome and it’s still going strong today you know? So there are still shows.
Planet Loud – Obviously it has had a lot of influence, how do you feel it compares with other scenes around the world?
Born From Pain – It’s hard to say, I mean since I got involved in hardcore scenes have developed but I think things have changed in the last 10 or 15 years. I don’t think there is anything as strong as there was back then but it’s a lot more widespread and accepted. You now get bands who are in Metal Hammer or Terrorizer or even Kerrang! who wouldn’t have been in these magazines 15 years ago. The smallest band from a local scene will be in the biggest magazines and in a way it has kind of stopped the small scenes in local areas. Although there are certain places you can go where you know there are going to be great shows, if you go to Belgium, go to Bruges where hundreds of people show up for shows. In East Germany it’s always crazy, but whether it’s the same as how it used to be is hard to say. I don’t think it’s quite the same.
Planet Loud – Do you think hardcore has lost its message because it has become so widespread?
Born From Pain – I think it has. I mean for me I remember going to shows and bands would always talk about something, maybe not every band but there would always be some kind of opinion. You’d go see five bands and three or four would be saying something, whether it was vegetarianism, straight edge, politics or what was going on in the world or the scene. Nowadays I don’t think they do it that much, there are one or two bands that still talk on stage and I think in the time that we’re living in its even more necessary to speak about things. I always found it very appealing that people like to discuss things, it’s not a case of “you have to believe what I’m saying” but it’s a good way to make people think and I think that’s missing from a lot of heavy music today, obviously you still have lyrical issues but I don’t think bands push that on stage as much.
Planet Loud – Your lyrics obviously have a point to them, but was the last album Survival a difficult album to write?
Born From Pain – Musically for me it’s always difficult to write an album (laughs). You get ideas in the worst places, you’ll be walking down the street and you don’t have your guitar but this riff will pop into your head and by the time you get home it’s forgotten. As a band we work well under pressure. Dominick and I will be at home trying to work out riffs and Rob will try to come up with some during practise and sometimes we’ll practise for eight hours and come out with nothing which is very frustrating, and sometimes we’ll practise for eight hours and write three songs. The closer to studio time we get the better the songs become and the more under pressure we are it brings out the best in us. I can’t speak for Rob because he writes all the lyrics for the band but I think he is constantly thinking of ideas in the same way that if me and Dominick are playing around with the guitars we might think of a riff and put it aside. We try and write as best we can and it always seems to be a difficult process.
Planet Loud – I guess one good thing is that you’re not short of topics at the moment.
Born From Pain – No there is a lot going on. We all try and take notice of what’s going on in the world and use our heads to decide what we believe and what we don’t believe, but, yeah, there is a lot of inspiration for the next album which we’re going to start writing soon. I think Rob is going to have his hands full with lyrical topics which is a good thing. It’s a bad thing that the world is this kind of state, it’s a little sad in that respect.
Planet Loud – Possible Born from Pain double album then?
Born From Pain – (laughs) Well if we could write 24 songs before we go into the studio I’m sure Rob could 24 sets of lyrics!
Planet Loud – So apart from writing the new album, do you have any other plans for 2010?
Born From Pain – It’s the usual thing really. It’s either a case of writing a new album and touring or just touring. So this year we’re writing and recording the new album and in the summer we’re playing the festivals like With Full Force and Hellfest. We’re going to hit up Japan again which we haven’t done for five or six years. Hopefully have decent tour for when the album comes out at the end of the year and yeah, just work as hard as we always do.
Planet Loud – Finally, is there anything else you want to say?
Born From Pain – Thanks for checking out the interview. You can check us out at www.bornfrompain.com or www.myspace.com/bornfrompain. Always think critically, look at what’s going on in the world and make up your mind about what’s happening. Don’t believe everything people tell you especially not the mainstream media these days. Keep an open mind.
Interview by Matt Tilt
