Strap on your wellies, Deviated Instinct are getting back together for the upcoming Feeding of the 5000 gig in London, what better time to fire off 3 questions..........many thanx to Mid for the replies
1: Deviated instinct used to get called deviated INSTINK and were credited with all this stenchcore stuff, what's the longest you've been without having a wash then? or changing yer pants?
Hmmm, I don't think anyone called us Instink, you just made that up to court controversy and scandal. As we said in a trillion interviews and seven back in the day we came up with the 'stenchcore' tag on our demo as kind of a joke as there were so many ridiculous 'cores' going about at the time and people used to comment on our general dishevelment. We never imagined it would be taken so seriously and become some sort of sub genre of it's own.
Our general state of disarray was purely down to the lazy, good fer nuthin' life style we were leading. Living in cruddy squats, bedsits etc, being drunk and falling in shrubberys, hitching all over the country and sleeping under motorway bridges and so forth. It was all genuine filth from filthy living. Them's were the days indeed. I mainly used to change my clothes when the one's I was wearing disintegrated. I didn't have a bathroom in my house. Well, there was a shared shower which was shared between a bunch of bedsits but it was rank so I just used to have a bath if I went to visit my parents which was normally only every few months.
Now I have a very nice flat with a very nice bathroom and a washing machine and so I am bright and shiny as a button and there really is no need to look like a tramp. Huzzah.
Hmmm, I don't think anyone called us Instink, you just made that up to court controversy and scandal. As we said in a trillion interviews and seven back in the day we came up with the 'stenchcore' tag on our demo as kind of a joke as there were so many ridiculous 'cores' going about at the time and people used to comment on our general dishevelment. We never imagined it would be taken so seriously and become some sort of sub genre of it's own.
Our general state of disarray was purely down to the lazy, good fer nuthin' life style we were leading. Living in cruddy squats, bedsits etc, being drunk and falling in shrubberys, hitching all over the country and sleeping under motorway bridges and so forth. It was all genuine filth from filthy living. Them's were the days indeed. I mainly used to change my clothes when the one's I was wearing disintegrated. I didn't have a bathroom in my house. Well, there was a shared shower which was shared between a bunch of bedsits but it was rank so I just used to have a bath if I went to visit my parents which was normally only every few months.
Now I have a very nice flat with a very nice bathroom and a washing machine and so I am bright and shiny as a button and there really is no need to look like a tramp. Huzzah.
2: Was reforming something that you were thinking of anyway or was it just because of the upcoming crass gig? Being a bit later than that early 80s anarcho scene, how come you ended up doing that gig? What's your opinion of the crass/ignorant gig thing anyway? I hear a lot of shouts of 'rip off' and 'sell out'?
No there were no plans at all to reform. In fact if I was ever asked about it I said it would be a cold day in hell before we did. I didn't see any reason for it. The closest we'd come was that until we started having terminal drummer problems Bait had been thinking about sorting out an American tour and we figured if we did play in the US we'd probably throw in a few old D.I songs at the end for fun.
The way this all came about was that I received an email from Leggo saying he'd been approached and asked if he was interested in reforming D.I for a one off gig playing with Steve Ignorant, Flux etc in London. It was good to hear from him as we'd lost touch some 13 or so years ago. But my initial response to his query was a flat 'no'. But then I got to thinking about it some more and talked it over with Snapa and posted a thread about it on the Profane Existence message board just to see what peoples opinions were and who would be interested. The response I had from there and all my friends I spoke to was mostly very positive and almost everyone was saying, "yeah …DO IT". We had to give an answer pretty quickly so we just thought, what the fuck, why not. It happened very quickly and now there's no going back, he he.
To be honest I'm just stoked that so many people are travelling from all over the world to see us and I'm meeting up with friends old and new from all over. Plus, to be honest it's just an experience. I mean there's no way I'd ever get another chance to play in a venue that size to potentially thousands of people. It's crazy. I'm used to playing to 3 dwarves and a goat in the toilet of a pub with Bait.
Regards my views on the whole thing. Well, yeah I know the punk police are there moaning on about it, and there are many valid points. I had already heard about the event before we were asked to play, to be honest I just didn't think anything of it, it didn't really interest me. If we weren't playing I very much doubt I'd have been going. But I wasn't bitching about it and for fucks sake, it's just a gig, there are more important things in life to get hot under the collar about. People are making a fuss about the £17.50 ticket price, but I paid more than that to see Neurosis in the same venue recently and didn't think anything of it. Sure, I know it's the whole Crass and 'pay no more' thing that leaves a bitter aftertaste and seems more than a little ironic, but still. This isn't 1983 or something. An event this size was always going to pull way too many people for any DIY space to cope with. Big venues have big overheads etc and the ticket price is going to reflect that. But no one's forcing anyone to go.
I'm under no illusions about the nature of the gig. For a lot of people I know it's nothing more than a big nostalgia fest. I'm really not a fan of the whole cult of bands reforming and trying to re-live their glory days or whatever. I'm more about the here and now, so maybe this all makes me a bit hypocritical, but fuck it who cares. I contradict myself on an hourly basis.
Personally I'm just taking from it what I want. That mainly being able to meet up with so many friends from around the globe, play some old tunes as a celebration of a band that I'm really proud to have been in and am chuffed that this many years after we fell to bits that people still care about. It's a pretty awesome feeling. And I don't doubt I'll be getting screaming drunk and singing along to every word of Feeding the 5000 by the end of the night. Hell, it's not gonna change the world or bring the government to it's knees. But when I first heard that record, and more so Stations of the Crass back in the early 80's I can't stress how much it changed my life and helped shape the person I am now and the way I live my life, the same goes for Flux of Pink Indians. I have no idea of the personal motives of the various members of those bands for doing this, but I know that it's not going to change the way I feel about their records and the message they spread 20 odd years ago. I know a lot of younger punks who were way too young to have been there first time are excited about this event so why not eh ? I'm sure even though the world has changed somewhat the words on those records still meant as much to them as me.
But at the end of the day, it's just a gig and will soon be forgotten and those whinging on about it now will have found something else to sit at home and grumble about.
3: is this a one off performance then or will there be more in the future? Does this mean you'll be throwing away your soap?! Peaceville have reissued all your stuff on CD so there's still a market for DI stuff? (In fact I saw your rock n roll conformity LP selling on ebay for £30 odd the other day, and some clown was asking £70 for the orgy 7"!)
Throwing away the soap? HA HA, I have to say if people are coming along expecting to see a bunch of people in filth ridden rags and dreads on stage they're gonna be disappointed. Is anyone else still dressing exactly the same as they did 20 years ago? Although I realise the whole crusty image is a lot about what people identify with the band, but hopefully it's about the music/lyrics too. As for if it's just a one off, well we're not looking any further ahead than this. We might do a small warm up gig somewhere beforehand if we can get anything sorted just because it's a bit daunting to go straight in cold to an event of this size. But we're not looking at it being a long-term thing, but then I said we'd never reform in the first place so It's best I don't make any rash statements. As of now we haven't even rehearsed yet, I guess it all depends on how it feels etc and I guess if the opportunity came up to go somewhere like the US or Japan that'd be a blast and pretty difficult to turn down. But who knows. There does actually seem to be more of a market for D.I stuff now than when we were actually going. I mean when we split in 91 it was because we felt like we were banging our heads against a brick wall. No one was interested. The last tour we did with Prophecy and Doom and Decadence Within quite a few of those dates the bands ended up just playing to each other and when people did show up they'd often be "What ?? I didn't even know you guys were still going." Peaceville had made it clear they weren't interested in doing another record etc. So it's pretty bizarre now, all these years later to have the albums re-released and received so well, and for so many distros to be printing and selling D.I shirts and patches etc. I seriously thought we would just be forgotten within a couple of years of splitting up. I just got on with Spine Wrench and then Bait. Bait is still very much my priority, we've just got a new drummer (Cooper, who incidentally is gonna do drum duties for the D.I shindig) and are writing new stuff at last and have some new releases in the pipeline so we're all excited about that.
Okay, thanks a lot for the interest. Mind you I think you should rename your page, as it's not technically 3 questions is it? I counted 8 question marks there you sneaky beggar ;o)
There you have it, thanks again to Mid
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