Tim Hackemack - HIT THE STAGE

What do you do, when you have spare time on the road?

I always bring books with me but I never get to read them.

But what about the so-called rock’n’roll lifestyle?

You can do that when you’re a big band and making enough money to drive around in a fucking big tour bus and got everything taken care of. But that’s not us, we still do all the work ourselves.

But you are one the of the most influential punk bands of all time?

Yes, we may be famous, but we are definitely not rich and famous.

Does that bother you? There’s almost no punk or metal band out there that doesn’t name you as one of their influences and some of them are really making it big and playing the big venues?

No, we still have our integrity. We play the songs we wanna play without any ulterior motive. If we’d be in it for the money we should have quit years ago. The band is now 40 years old. This is just what we do.

You released your last record on Nuclear Blast , which is one of the biggest names in Germany, doesn’t that help in selling albums?

We’ve put stuff out on DIY labels as well, like the second to last album the band made, but they didn‘t have the funds to promote it properly. Nuclear Blast has let everybody know that we have a new album out, that was great. That is a big advantage, but the music industry has changed and the labels nowadays aren’t making enough money to also pay the bands. We have to make our money on the road.

How do you do that? Is it the fee you get from the promoters or is it the merch?

That depends on the country you are in. In some of them you don’t sell any merch, in others it is a lot. But we mostly know beforehand from experience where we’ll sell a lot of stuff and where we won’t. Sometimes we make special T-Shirts for gigs, that makes it a bit more personal.

Which are the most appreciative audiences?

For us it’s mostly Eastern Europe, like the Czech Republic. They really fucking go for it over there. Not so many bands come over there, so they make the best of every show. Crowd-wise there are even large differences within the UK. When we play in London, the crowd is really good, a lot of young people come, but it seems the further north we go it’s just a lot of old punkrockers coming to relive their youth. It’s not a very active crowd.

Are there countries you still want to visit?

Yes, we really want to go to Australia, but so far it hasn’t worked out. We haven’t had a decent offer. Discharge has played a lot of countries all over the world, but that one is still missing.

I heard from a lot of bands that they get treated much better in mainland Europe than in England. Is that the same for a band like Discharge ?

We experience the same thing. In England you don’t get treated very well. In Europe on the other hand, the promoters take care of the bands, they feed the bands and they make you feel welcome. It’s much more professional than in England. There they just want you to play, get paid and get the fuck out.

Is there a place you don’t want to play anymore?

Probably the USA, because the last times we have been to the USA we always got ripped off by the promoters. But besides that, it’s too hard to get into the States. Rainy and Tezz can’t get in anyway, so we would have to go and have people fill in for them. But even if they could get in, we would probably get ripped off again. That’s a shame because we have our biggest fan base in the US, Central America and South America.

But you could go there?

Yes, we could and the band did before I joined. We still get a lot of offers, but you need to know who you are dealing with. But we will do it if a good opportunity comes up.

Do you share the responsibility in the band?

We really are a very disorganized band. So, if anything has to be done, one of us does it but we didn’t appoint responsibilities. We are only professional musicians.

I noticed that when Tezz filled in for Rainy on bass at the show in Deventer. There was not a big difference to you playing as a five-piece.

He is great at everything. When Discharge started, he was the singer, then he was the drummer and in 2014 he came in on rhythm-guitar. He also played bass in Broken Bones with me.

You were the singer of Broken Bones before you filled in for your former singer Rat from the Varukers . When you were asked, did you have to think about it?

Yes, I did. I thought a lot about it and then I said I’ll try it and if it goes south I’ll piss off. Luckily it turned out great.

Are you as the youngest member an equal in the band?

Yes, we are all equal in the band and we decide the important things together. No one is really in charge.

Do you still have many arguments or is everybody pretty much on the same page?

Yes, there are arguments. There are always arguments, non-stop arguments. That’s part of being in a band, I think. But when we‘re not on tour, we don’t see each other that much because we all live in different parts of the country.

Do you need to practice?

No, we only practice when we need to work on new material. Every other time the gigs are our practice.

Who comes up with new ideas, do you write the songs together?

We generally write the songs together and work on them together.

Did you ever have the feeling that you’ve lost part of the anger you felt when you were 18? Does it make it harder to write honest hard sounding music?

Of course, it is no longer the same, but the anger still comes out and the times haven’t really changed. Man has been killing man since the beginning of the times. We’re just conditioned now to control it. But you can disregard that, because in my opinion the state of the world now is worse than ever. You got the rise of the right wing, fascism is coming back hard. We’ve had a lot of progress from the 1960s, from the civil rights movement. We now have gay marriage, a lot of rights but lately it feels like we are regressing.

Are you afraid that Brexit is gonna make it harder for you to tour?

Yes, it’s definitely going to make things more difficult. We might need to apply for visas again. I don’t understand why people wanted that. I don’t want to call anybody stupid, but that was a stupid decision.

Do you still listen to a lot of new music?

Yes, I do. Most of my life it has been nothing but punk. Now, that I get older, I basically listen to everything, if it is good and it is real.

Do you have a special studio that you use to record your albums?

The last album we recorded was praised by everybody as sounding so great. People said it was the sound of Discharge recorded with modern technology. Truth is, it was recorded on tapes from the 70s in a small studio. But sometimes things just work out.

What was the worst experience on tour ever?

That was when they didn’t want to let me into Canada because of my criminal record.

And the best experience?

That was just a few weeks ago when we went on stage with Max and Igor Cavalera of Sepultura to play some Discharge songs. That was very cool.

Do you have a back-up plan, in case the band falls apart next week?

Yes, start a new band. There is no turning back for me. I have a job right now, I work two days a week. But it’s not something I could turn into a career. My retirement plan is to build a fucking shelter in the woods and live there.