interview from 2007, quite possibly unpublished

Name and role in the Endless Blockade?

Nolan – Minister of Propaganda and Information

How do you feel about ther term powerviolence?Would you consider powerviolence to be a good classification of your band? Do you agree or disagree that it is sort of a trendy subgenre of hardcore right now?

I have no problem with admitting we're a power violence influenced band. As for it being a trendy sub-genre, it really depends on how you define trendy; a tiny sub-section of a small scene (hardcore in 2007) isn't really trendy in my opinion.

Or maybe it means people playing a style of music without either the necessary skill or the proper understanding of the genre to accomplish their desired results. In which case it could conceivably be called trendy, but I don't know that the existence of obviously lousy bands is the only criteria we should use.

What is the song Haymaker Vs. Manowar about?

I have a Manowar DVD (sampled on our second demo) where Joey Dimao is talking about encouraging their fans to destroy a club during a video shoot.

Haymaker, for those who don't know, basically can't play live anymore (or rarely can) because in Ontario the audience just fucking smashes any venue they play to pieces.

So it's basically drawing a minor parallel between Manowar and Haymaker. Of course my money is on Haymaker winning every single time and I suspect Manowar fans did little in the way of any real destruction.


footage from the infamous Haymaker show at The Corktown

How long was Ryo in the band? How long has this current lineup been in existence?

Ryo was in Canada for approximately a year, we managed to record the first demo and have an abortive attempt at recording the LP with him on drums (which was salvaged as the second demo and Come Friendly Bombs 7"). Ryo also contributes a vocal freakout at the start of Island on the Warzone Womyn LP.

He can now be found mainly in Sete Star Sept back in Tokyo and probably in about eight million jazz/ noise projects. And sometimes he jams with the legendary Keiji Heino. [and sete star sept]


The current and final line up of The Endless Blockade has been together since late 2004



I didnt get to witness this myself, but i heard that T.E.B served as the backing band for Hatred Surge. How did that come about? Did you serve as the backing band for the Euro tour?How was it ?

For those who don't know, Hatred Surge is one guy playing every instrument on his recordings, so he has to get hired guns to play live with him.

The Endless Blockade is basically the Canadian franchise of Hatred Surge. We've done one show as Hatred Surge and have a few more in august 2007 on the cards. [ultimately we played a total two shows as Hatred Surge and obviously Hatred Surge is an actual full band now]

The European tour line up for Hatred Surge was Jon and Jensen from Iron Lung and Ben from The Endless Blockade with Alex and it was by far the best I've seen Hatred Surge and I think I've seen all the incarnations bar the Alex plus iPod early days.

Speaking of the European tour, how was that?

Good, if a little sedate at times, possibly due to D Beat's vice like grip around the neck of many scenes currently. D Beat in 2007 is as expected and as bland and formulaic as Youth Crew was in the late eighties and will be the death knell of hardcore over the next few years.

Playing shows is the least important part of touring for me and I consider Jon and Jensen from Iron Lung, Alex from Hatred Surge, the rest of Blockade and the others that came on tour with us as very close friends so it was a great time for me.

What was the best show on the European tour?

Mannheim was cool, as were Leipzig, Gent, Strasbourg and Groningen.

Is the name The Endless Blockade taken from the GISM song, or is there a deeper meaning?

I comes from GISM, there was a deeper meaning and like the best magick it only works when you forget the original intention and I pretty much have at this point…

Do the band members hold down regular jobs while not touring?

I manage to pay my habitual record buying debts with ease and aplomb, yes

On the split with Warzone Womyn, your side consists of an amazing, crushing near 20 minute sludge song. What was the idea for this?

It's just a natural part of our sound; we're not all fast fast fast thirty second songs. We just wanted to draw out some of slower influences a bit. There'll be some more releases in a related vein in the future. [i shit canned all of these except the Bastard Noise split]

As someone who has been involved with hardcore and diy for a while, where do you see these things headed?What bands/people do you feel are doing the genre justice and keeping this subculture breathing?

Hard to tell really. I guess the thing that keeps me going this long is by really narrowing my parameters of what I'm into; consequently I don't get burned out on punk because I don't buy every flash in the pan hyped record and go see every show that comes within fifty mile radius anymore.

Trendwise I see the D Beat thing going on longer and in certain parts of the world crushing what's considered acceptable in hardcore.

I see more and more useless D Beat bands who are merely emo bands with gruff singers and punk drummers.

I think at some point in the future discerning metal heads will start producing convincingly good black metal bands with large crust influences. I don't really see a future in punk bands trying their hands at black metal though, all the examples I've seen over the years have been pretty bad to be honest.

I think in the US audiences will get younger and in Europe they'll get older. All of which will mean is that in Europe shows will be very mellow yet financially viable and in the US the reverse; shows will be exciting, yet less easy to break even on.

Related to this I think hardcore will get safer and safer and then someone somewhere will say enough and bring back some kind of edge and sense of danger, elitism (punk really is not for everyone and we need to bring that back) and radicalism (however you choose to define that). [this might be one of the first times where i unashamedly used the word elitism.]

And people will continue to make limited tour only merch as a way of forcing people to buy the records direct from the band on tour.

I think we'll see some of the bigger distros and labels collapse for trying to please everyone all of the time instead of focusing on specific genres and ideas.

As for who's keeping the subculture breathing I'm just going to give a very very small list of punk bands I currently enjoy that others might not have heard of:

SFN from Wisconsin, Judas from LA, Suburban Disease from the UK, Grinding Halt from The Netherlands, Brain Handle from Pittsburgh, Dirty BS from Toronto, The Process from the UK, Staat Haat from The Netherlands, Black Shape of Nexus from Germany and Living in Darkness from Toronto

What can we be on the lookout for from The Endless Blockade?

In 2007 we're recording the following:

A split 7" with Wadge, a collaboration LP with Bastard Noise and Primitive, our second LP proper, to be released on 20 Buck Spin. [and apparently the Wadge split is out]

No more tours this year and we'll see what 2008 brings.