ACCUSED
Interview:
Don Kaye
FROM A-Z
The Accused are well known in both hard-
core and metal circles since they're one of
those bands that appeals to both sets of fans.
They are often referred to in vague terms
such as "speedcore" and "punk metal,"
although the band themselves call their
music "splatter rock." That's as appropriate
a name as any, since not only do they sing
about depressing and frequently brutal sub-
jects, but the sound features the tortured
vocals of Blaine literally splattered across.
Tommy's chainsaw guitars and the
spasmodic rhythms of bassist Alex and
drummer Dana.
The Accused kicked off their career with
the rare Martha Splatterhead EP, and have
followed it up with three albums: The Return
of Martha Splatterhead, More Fun Than An
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Open Casket Funeral, and the brand new
Martha Splatterhead's Maddest Stories Ever
Told. In honor of the Accused's sickest LP
yet (it even features a deranged cover of "I'd
Love To Change the World"), we ran through
an alphabet of subjects with Blaine...
ACCUSED
"We want to reach a wider audience and
define our style better each time, which I
think we're doing. We're just splatter rock,
hardcore with a metal edge."
BOREDOM
"When I'm bored, I'll either sleep or try
and find something to do. I'll hop on the bus,
take a long walk downtown, take a cross
country skate run, or drink some beer and
listen to music... If the weather's bad, I'll find
Visual Effects:
J.J. Gonson
Seattle's Accused rock out a dumbstruck crowd.
myself bored pretty easily, but I can always
turn on the old idiot box and let that distract
me for a few hours."
CROSSOVER
"I think there was a metal/hardcore
crossover for a while, although it's at the point
now where that's not a good term to use
because it's almost a whole new form of
music that's happened. Four or five years
ago, China White was the first band I ever
saw that used the term crossover. Now there
are a lot of young bands coming out with a
whole new sound. I don't consider us a
crossover band, but a lot of new metal in-
fluences our music."
DEATH
"Dana had a close call with death last
night. We played, and after the gig we
were supposed to stay with the pro-
moter, who lived with another guy. The
other guy was really drunk and he hop-
ped into his car and we were supposed
to follow him to his place. Dana got into
the car with him, but the dude was far
too drunk to be driving. He started
going through the streets of downtown
Victoria, weaving around, going
through lights. Finally, he smashed
through a retaining wall into some-
one's front yard. Smashed the car up
pretty bad, but luckily Dana had his
seat belt on and wasn't hurt. We left
the guy there and went back to the club
to tell his buddy, but when we got to
their house, the dude was already
there in his smashed-up Camaro.
"Let's face it, besides being born
and being taxed, you can only be
certain of dying."
ELECTION YEAR
"I'm probably not going to vote this
year. It's not that I'm apathetic, but
pretty much all politicians are the
same, and somebody's always going
to get fucked over. That's why we don't
get political in our music. If you want
to sing about that stuff, you should do
something about it too."
FEAR
Blaine ponders the mysteries of life and Martha Splatterhead.
"My biggest foar is getting my ass
beaten bad by one or many people.
I've never been in that situation, but
if it happens I'll try to keep calm, talk my way
out of it, or leave."
GORE
"We love gore. Just seeing people get
wasted in every way imaginable is cool, as
long as you don't take it too seriously."
HORROR MOVIES
"Some of our favorites are The Last Man
On Earth with Vincent Price, a classic. Spider
Baby, which was the last movie Lon Chaney
Jr. ever made. It can really scare you without
lots of blood and effects. It's also known as
The Maddest Story Ever Told, which is where
we got the title for our album. In the movie,
Lon Chaney sang the theme song-it had
a surf beat."
"I'D LOVE TO CHANGE THE WORLD"
"The guy who produced our record, Terry
Date, had some extra time in the studio, so
we thought that was a song we could do real-
ly well. We just learned it in the studio, and
when we were doing it, Kurt Vanderhoof from
Metal Church came down and played lead.
"It's becoming kind of trendy to do covers
these days, so we like to reach back and do
something unusual. It may seem that we
slaughter these songs, but we think we learn
them the way they sound originally, and they
just come out the way they do."
JOBS
"Music is a full-time job with less than part-
time wages.
KINGDOM COME
"It's safe for them to do what they're doing.
There are a lot more (fans) for a band like
that than for a band like us, because every
body's already accepted that kind of music."
LOVE
"There may be room for love songs in what
we do, but not yet. I'm not old enough to
become that sentimental. Maybe when I'm
forty"
"MARTHA SPLATTERHEAD"
"I was in an alley in Seattle one day, sit-
ting on a fire escape with a beer, and she
came by. We got to talking and she gave me
some of her views on rape, child abuse, and
other crimes that people often get off for
Martha chooses to punish the criminals her
own way. Now here we are, four years later,
and she's still doing it. Just tracks 'em down
and blows 'em away. Sort of a vigilante.
"Actually we just wanted to have a female
killer, so that we wouldn't get into a sexist
thing I wouldn't want to have a giant Mar-
tha on stage with us, but I'd love to sell the
idea to a small movie company one day.
Maybe she could become a cult hero like the
Toxic Avenger"
NEW ALBUM
"It's about as good a sound as we're go-
ing to get. All the songs are written with Alex.
who's a much better bassist than Chewy was,
so this makes Tommy better on guitar and
improves everything we do."
ORIGINALITY
"There's not a lot of originality in hardcore
today. There's a lot of rehash. I think we're
pretty original, though I guess it's debatable."
PARENTS
"Parents have never understood
what their kids are into. They never
listen to the music or what the band.
is saying, they only pay attention to the
image. It's been that way since the
days of Frank Sinatra. We have good
relationships with our folks. They're
behind us 'cause they know we believe
in what we do."
QUESTION
"If I could ask one question of one
person in the world, I'd ask our
ex-manager why he thought he could
do to us what he already did to some
other acts."
RELIGION
"It's not for me. Some people may
need it. I think the way religion is now
is not the way it was meant to be. It's
kind of hard to use the same values.
man used thousands of years ago."
SUCCESS
"I'll feel I'm successful when the
band supports me every month and it's
not a problem. When we can tour every
town and get a good turnout. I'm not
interested in a nice house and a car
right now, although if someone offered
me a BMW I'd take it."
TALENT
"You need it even to play hardcore.
It's difficult to play any kind of music
Just to make the effort is more than a
lot of critics can do. You have to give credit
where credit is due."
UNDERGROUND
"They've been totally supportive. That's
what it's all about. We haven't broken into
any sort of major market yet. Perhaps we will
soon, but now our following is underground.
The danger is the business side of music can
make you lose your following."
VACATION
"I want to go to Europe, and hopefully we'll
get there this year. I guess that would be a
working vacation."
WASHINGTON (the state)
"Seattle has a really good music scene.
It's flourishing here and in Tacoma. There
are a lot of good hardcore bands like Subvert,
Coffin Break, Morphious. Then we've got a
Guns 'n' Roses type band called Mother
Love Bone, plus Forced Entry is really good
thrash metal. Things are healthy"
XENOPHOBIA (fear of aliens)
"From space? That would be all right, as
long as they're good aliens who aren't going
to suck my blood or use my body for a co-
coon or something. I wouldn't mind having
them around."
YOUTH OF AMERICA/ZOMBIES (is one.
becoming the other?)
"Yeah. I think TV, MTV especially, has real-
ly changed the youth of America in the past
few years. The kids around here are all slaves
to fashion and MTV. I don't know how that
bodes for the future, but I think it's only going
to get worse."
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