STRAIGHT OPPOSITION interview

by marcs77

After the "Fury Stands Unbeaten" Italy’s angry old school hardcore combo STRAIGHT OPPOSITION is back with a fury related record-title "The Fury From The Coast", and this time around, this fury, represents the one bursting out of the centre of Italy’s regions -these guys hail from Pescara, Abruzzo- and their strong and proud people struggling and fighting hard for living a normal life in an ill-fated territory that over the recent years, 2016 and 2017, has been badly struck by some devastating and deadly earthquakes. In the aftermath of the seismic activities, a high toll of deaths was claimed, buildings and historical monuments got toppled and damaged, leaving entire towns and areas with the problem of housing people, temporarily, while waiting for the long complicated re-building to start up; a re-building being made longer and complex due to those who, to aquire personal benefit, abuse of their power and public resources.
Straight Opposition have always been straightforward while addressing these issues and aren’t definitely some unheard-of-newcomers among the Italian and European hardcore punk scene being the four-piece formed in 2004 and counting under their belt several record releases (the new album "The Fury From The Coast" marks their fifth full-length), and tours both in Italy and Europe, which got hit more than a few times.
I emailed these questions to Ivan Di Marco (vocals), last December, when they had just headed out with their van, on the “Populism Is Cancer” tour, destination Europe.
Read on the answers from Straight Opposition…

gan: Hey guys how’re things?

S.O. Hi fine!!! We are just back at home after touring 3 weeks all around Europe.

gan: So, let the “Fury From The Coast” be unleashed. What the title of your latest work is all about and means to you?

S.O. Yeah. “The Fury From The Coast” is dedicated to all those people who’re still fighting on the East coast side, after one hundred bad happenings between '16 and '17. They are forced to live in state of mafia and corruption, and earthquakes and desperation... but they never ever get their heads down. They stand and are still here at any cost, taking on them all the risk. It doesn't matter if they lose. They've already won in any case!

gan: What are your favourite songs from the record?

S.O. Old Fascism, New Habits of course. This plays fast, old and full of hate on themes.

gan: I’ve got the feeling this time around you modernized a bit your old school hardcore adding some influences from the mid 90’s metal hardcore crossover and even nu-metal (the title track comes to mind here). What are you currently listening to and how has this somehow influenced the writing of the new tunes?

S.O. Yeah, we are influenced a lot from the sound that you mentioned. Anyway, it's not the first time that we bring something like the 90's feeling on our songs (“Step by Step” for example). About the influence from cross-over, this is about the title track only I think. For the rest, we kept our style in the old school oriented song-writing with modern sounds.
About our general influences: we listen to a lot of music. Anyway, when we’re building a song, we starting to ask ourselves, what the band is it? and what the band would like to express? After that, we made new songs.

gan: STRAIGHT OPPOSITION has always been a social conscious, political and anti-fa band. You’re currently around on the “Populism Is Cancer” tour and you have a new song titled “Old Fascism, New Habits”, and in Italy and Europe on the whole we are living times where far-right leaders hope to take power pushing their nationalist, anti-establishment, Eurosceptic and populist agenda. What’s your personal view on the current socio-political situation?

S.O. Situation is getting worse day by day, you know. People need to believe in something strong, to make a repair in their life. So, leaders start to play with their ambition, feelings and aspirations. They say to the people: “you cannot have this or that because the Chinese, the African etc... have stolen what could be yours”. A simple mechanism, the most basic, now supported by the multimedia confusion and handling. Even the subcultures are losing by the way the self-consciousness of what they meant in the past. That's a tragedy.

gan: Btw: how the new songs are being received by the kids?

S.O. Kids and zines welcomed “The Fury…” well.

gan: Where did you pick the sample opening the track “The Fury From The Coast”? (i.e. The fury is coming, this is it!)

S.O. Ahahaha… we recorded it in Studio. Claudia Benson (a Leandro and Sebastiano’s friend ) lent her voice to us for 10 minutes. After that, Leandro added the open sea effect.

gan: How’s the Pescara hardcore scene going? On fb there are two groups (i.e. Pescara Hardcore and pescarahardcorecrew) where you get the feel somebody is working their asses hard to keep the things moving…

S.O. So sorry, but this crew no longer exists. We made a lot of shows and fests in 2016 but now we took a break.

gan: While talking about hardcore the word UNITY comes up frequently and it would be one of the founding values of the whole scene. Yet, many times the feeling is that everybody tends to their own knitting only. What are your feelings about this statement?

S.O. I cannot add more to your analysis, because what you think is totally right. We have to be honest: we talk about hardcore scene, but things are totally different nowdays. The scene has obviously changed. Kids have new ways of understanding hardcore. Many of these ways no longer belong to what Hardcore was before. The choice to stay old school in every sense, will always have to deal with this situation. So this is about the values of unity too. Totally changed now.

gan: Who did the artwork of the new album? And what’s the concept behind this visual, if any?

S.O. All the drawings were made by Matteo Giannese, our ex guitarist. The concept meaning is, in reality, a reference to the cover of our “Fury Stands Unbeaten album” (2012). This (and that) means that the battle rages on in life until death: face to face, with all the anger, fury and hate necessary against your enemy. Old school until last breath. You have to fight as much as you can. No way out.

gan: 2017 is drawing to a close. How's the year been for you and what's in your view the best hardcore release of the year?

S.O. This has been a very important year for the band. We released the third full-length and played everywhere...in the name of diy, with no masters or trends to follow. About the new releases: I was impressed by a lot of Italian good releases, (Mud, Soviet Order Zero, Slander etc…) and the latest release from Integrity, Unsane, Battery and Fireburn out of Italy. Such a good year.

gan: Thanks for the time. Any final comments?

Thanx a lot to your staff. Spread STRAIGHT OPPOSITION and old school hardcore spirit everywhere!

gan: Their album is available through Indelirium records

Stream here "The Fury From The Coast" in its entirety https://indeliriumrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-fury-from-the-coast

Check: www.facebook.com/pg/StraightOpposition