Interviews: Amen

Brandon Sideleau recently sat down with members of Amen to talk about the band who recently released Death By Musick (reviewed here). You can click below to see what he found out.

I arrived at the current home of Amen at 1:00 pm on
Thursday, June 10th. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as this is
my first time interviewing a real band, let alone one of my favorite bands of
all time. I was immediately greeted when I walked in the door by Amen members
Scott Sorry, Luke Johnson, and Casey Chaos…..all amazing people, way cooler
than I had ever wished. Matt unfortunately could not make the interview due to
a previous engagement, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I was more than happy
with what I got. I sat next to Casey, with Luke, Scott, and Casey’s awesome dog
Darby all nearby. Thus, began my 1 hour + interview with Amen…

So you guys recently returned from touring with
the Brides Of Destruction… how was that?

Casey- It was great, much better than expected, they
were great people and we had a great time.

Luke- We were worried that the people at the shows
would mainly be interested in only the kind of music BOD was playing and
dislike us, but this was not true at all.

So you guys were well received by the
audiences?

Casey- Yeah. They seemed to dig our stuff for the most
part.

So what have you guys been listening to lately?

Scott- Dead Kennedys

Which DK album?

Scott- Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death

Casey- The 2nd set of unreleased recordings
from Void.

I just picked up the Faith/Void split album, I
really like it.

Casey- Yeah it’s my favorite album.

Luke- I’ve been listening to The Cure and some other
similar music, a wide variety.

You guys gonna be doing a headlining tour of
the US for your new album, Death Before Musick, anytime this year?

Casey- We’re trying to get something like that going,
but nothing’s certain yet. We’re playing Summer Sonic in Japan this summer.

Really? Sounds great.

So what are your favorite songs off the new
album?

Casey- "Abolishment Of Luxury" probably, it changes
all the time.

Luke- "We Got The Bait" because it’s a really great
and up tempo song. It’s easy to get into. I like "Oblivion Stereo" a lot too.

Scott- Probably "Liberation For…."  and "Westwood Fallout" …..pretty much
all the songs Luke can’t play (laughs)

Luke- (laughs)

(I notice a picture of Henry Rollins circa ‘83/’84 on
Casey’s wall)

Casey- That person standing right below Henry is me
when I was, like, 15.….there were 25 people at the show that night and it was
my first show ever, it was amazing. For me Black Flag was amazing, Black Flag
changed my life. For me it was like what it is for other people to have seen,
say, someone like KISS live.

What was it like working with Henry on the Rise
Above benefit record?

Casey- It was amazing, I got a call from Henry and he
said "Is this Casey?" and I Said "Yes", Henry- "Casey Chaos from the band
Amen?", Casey-"Yes", Henry- "This is Henry Rollins and I was wondering if you’d
like to do a benefit for the West Memphis Three by singing the Black Flag song
"Depression" on an album I’m making.", Casey- "Uh…(stunned) yeah!" So I asked him
if I could do it within the hour and Henry said "GREAT!" and a couple hours and
3 takes later it was done. It was really amazing, Henry is a great guy. Me and
him hung out once afterwards and talked extensively about The Adverts, since we
are both huge fans.

What’s your favorite Black Flag album?

Casey- Hmmmm… actually my favorite Black Flag stuff
would have to be the 1982 demos, although they were never officially released,
I bought a great bootlegged copy.

Yeah, me too, those recordings are amazing.

Casey- Yeah, I like pretty much all of Black Flag’s
music, they never really released anything that wasn’t good. As they got more
experimental it wasn’t quite as good as the early stuff….but I still like all
of it a lot.

So what do you guys do in between touring, on
downtime like this?

Casey- Listen to music, do interviews….the other guys
party a lot, I usually stay here and listen to my records though. That’s my
life, listening to music and playing music (laughs).

Yeah, me too, not much else to do out here
(laughs).

So you guys made a record for Virgin a while
back that never saw the light of day… ..will we ever get to hear any of that
stuff?

Casey- Probably not, it’s in the past and I’d pretty
much like to focus on the future. There were also a lot of songs we recorded
for Death Before Musick that weren’t released, those may show up on the Free
Music Campaign on our site soon. I recorded different sessions with different
people. I did one session with Don Bolles from the Germs on drums ("Abolishment
Of Luxury", "We Got The Bait"), there is a whole album’s worth of material like
that which I think you’d really dig.

There was an Amen DVD recently released? Did
you guys have anything to do with that or was it more of a third party
creation.

Scott- We didn’t even know… we came back from tour and
were like "We have a DVD out?"

Casey- They approached me a while back and asked me if
I wanted to make a DVD and I said I did, then all of a sudden it’s available on
Amazon.com. We had no input at all on the DVD.

Have you guys seen the DVD yet?

Luke- Oh yeah, we have it, just haven’t really got a
chance to sit down and watch it yet. (Luke grabs the DVD from a shelf full of
rare punk rock and black metal DVDs).

I liked it, the show was great. But the video
editors really messed around with the effects too much….sometimes it was
disorientating.

Casey- Yeah I know what you mean, I saw a bit of it
and I agree about the effects being over done.

Well, it was great getting to hang out and talk
with you guys.

Casey- Yeah thanks for coming, great to meet you too.