The Fight

My first encounter with The Fight from NY was some months ago when Triple B Records put out the ‘Endless noise’ 12”… and I was totally blown away. Old school hardcore with lots of UK82 and oi! influences in the vein of Negative Approach and Sheer Terror; you hardly get this in the hardcore scene nowadays. I had a chit chat with John, the bassist, who is also involved in the East Coast Collective, one of Long Island’s leading teams when it comes to promoting shows, about The Fight, hardcore, politics and the pandemic.

Interview conducted in mid April 2020. Pictures provided by the band.

thefightli.bandcamp.com

Hey John! Thanks for being generous in answering my questions! Please introduce yourself? Who’s in The Fight, when and where did you form? You know, the typical stuff.

Hey Apostolis! Not a problem, thanks for interviewing me! My name is John (Scanlon) and I play bass in The Fight. The Fight consists of myself, Kyle (Vocals), Lil D (Drums), Quinn and Dylan (Guitars). We formed in 2016 in Long Island, NY. I guess technically we formed at The Jamhouse in Lindenhurst considering that was were we had our first few practices as a full band if you want to get a little more specific.

You recently released ‘Endless noise’ via BBB Records. Give us some more info about the record and the collaboration with Triple B.

“Endless Noise” is a 12 Inch EP that features 7 new songs and an intro that consists of clips from news broadcasts, each clip actually revolves around the topics of each song but they get layered so you can’t really hear what they’re saying – ya know, endless noise. This is our second EP and first record with Triple B. The Triple B collaboration comes from me putting out our first record then giving some copies to Sam to put up to his webstore which ended up selling quickly, so we made a “Triple B pressing” which was just a new colorway + screen-printed cover (which was good because there was typo on the back of the original covers) and he sold those quickly as well. After that I made a joke about him putting our next record and he was down. I think we sold out of /200 variant today so I guess I don’t have to worry about Sam regretting his decision ha.

The Fight play a kind of old school hardcore that I personally love but it’s not that popular in today’s hardcore scene that it gets more poppy than ever. I definitely hear a big Negative Approach influence in your sound. What did influence you to lean on this hardcore spectrum? Yeah our style definitely isn’t what was “in” at the time we started but it’s slowly being more acceptable in the “hardcore” realm. It’s weird because punk and hardcore used to just be intertwined but slowly over the years kind of separated, especially these days. We just wanted to start a band in Long Island influenced by bands we loved and wanted to show kids in LI you didn’t have to be “heavy” to be a hardcore band. We also just wanted to play some punk shows too. If we had to choose, our influences were definitely the whole UK 82 scene, Negative Approach, Poison Idea, Breakdown, Sheer Terror and others.

Do you think that hardcore has become very safe? It seems that less and less bands care about society or politics anymore. So one question to provoke you; is hardcore still relevant or a passing fad for youngsters to pretend to be angry and stylish?

Hmm that’s a good question, I definitely feel likes it’s more safe in a few different ways. On the violence at shows side – I think that’s great and I was never big into the “macho” shit at shows so it being a scene where everyone is actually united and has a good time with me is way better than having to worry about what beef you have / what weapon someone is carrying so that safe side is totally ok with me which is funny to say coming from a Bulldoze superfan. Lyric wise, I totally agree it’s safe, I feel like a lot of current bands fall under the same themes lyrically and kind of don’t stand out. Hardcore is way more impactful when the lyrics are very personal or political in my opinion. Comes more from the heart ya know? I think hardcore is still very relevant but there will always be some part timers that come into the scene and are only into as a fad. Those kids will fade and the people who actually care / into it will be there for years to follow. That’s how it’s always been.

Btw, what are you fighting for? What are your favorite topics you want to cover lyrically with The Fight? Name some of the books, movies / series or even articles on

The Fight is just an expression in the sense of “The Fight for…” which could relate to plenty of different topics. We usually cover topics relating to health care, politics, the justice system, more or less anything relating to why the world can be shit due to government. We sprinkle in a stereotypical theme here and there, i.e. depression, but that’s always going to be important. I personally don’t write the lyrics so I can’t really state which books / movies are influences to my singer but I did write a majority of the lyrics to the song “Counting Days” on the new record which was just influenced by my own thoughts of depression, and some influence from Morrissey songs, pretty sure I took a line or two.

How is the situation in The States right now? Is the pandemic moving Trump out of his throne?

Living in New York during this is pretty surreal, streets that are normally flooded are currently empty and all you hear are ambulance sirens bringing people to hospitals. At 7pm every day I hear my neighbors cheer for Medical Workers. I haven’t been able to see my friends / family for the past month+ which is obviously depressing. I’m hoping things get a bit better over the next month or two but obviously no one really knows how long this will take and if it’ll come back just as bad before we eventually have the vaccine. I don’t think this is going to effect Trump at being re-elected honestly, the Democrats pretty much fucked themselves by putting Joe Biden as the front runner when he can barely form sentences and he’s facing a sexual assault allegation so I doubt he’ll win over the legion of Trump fanatics. I wish my country wasn’t so idiotic but such is life.

Back to music… You play lots of shows with The Fight and usually diverse ones with mixed up line ups. What would be your favorite 4 bands that you’d love to share the stage with in a 5-band line up right now?

Yeah we’re basically down to play whatever, we played a fest last year where we were the only punk band and the rest of the bands were beatdown bands – I like to joke that they never listened to us and just put us on cause of our

name. We obviously like to stay in our lane but we don’t mind branching out because maybe you’ll end up getting someone into a different style of music than what they’re used to. I don’t think we stole any fans from the beatdown fest though sadly. That’s a good question but I’m not sure if you mean current bands or dream line ups so I’ll give you both!

Current: Exit Order – Warthog – Restraining Order – Dead Heat

Dream line up: Breakdown – Negative Approach – Sheer Terror – Poison Idea

You are also involved in booking / promoting shows with East Coast Collective, based in Long Island. Give us some more info about this. Do you do that for a living? Which ones are some of your favorite shows you have organized so far?

Yeah I’m a co-owner of East Coast Collective, we put on shows on the Island in all different genres and in venues ranging from 225 caps to 1500 caps. I do indeed do it for a living, it’s been my main job for the past 5 years or so, I also am a “secret partner shhh” of the Amityville Music Hall. Favorite hardcore show was definitely the Silent Majority reunion followed by the Gorilla Biscuits shows I did this year. Non-hardcore was probably either Cannibal Corpse, Bone Thugs (because there was a gun fired 5 feet away from me), or Saves The Day.

How is the scene in Long Island? Even though almost all the old NYHC still tour / release records, it seemed to me that there was a huge generation gap between the now and then of NYHC. But recently, lots of

cool bands (with Backtrack – R.I.P. – being a great ambassador) are putting NYHC back on the map. What’s your opinion about this?

The scene is great right now. Almost every scene has it’s ups and downs over the years but right now we have great turn outs and a decent amount of local bands. There were always bands over the years but none of them really got that big / toured. We had a lot of hometown pride that the rest of country / world didn’t see. The NYHC touring flag started riding again once Backtrack started touring full time, since then people kind of kept an eye on Long Island and opened up the opportunity for part time bands like Incendiary, King Nine, Rule Them All, and many others to become recognized without having to tour nonstop. Hangman is a band from here that is trying to tour full time so much respect to them for trying to get out there and keep it going.

I guess that’s all. Wanna add something? Let’s finish this with a bang! Top5 NY related movies of all time.

Thanks for the interview! Umm for anyone reading this try to be more open minded when it comes to music, don’t typecast or pigeonhole anything. Also be more open minded when it comes to normal life as well, I’m not on some hippy tip or anything but just try to chill out a bit and be more accepting – don’t walk around with a chip on your shoulder cause at the end of the day you’re going to die like the rest of us and be forgotten like the rest of us, so no need to treat some people better than others. Uhhh I’m honestly terrible with movies except romance ones so this list will be funny:

Goodfellas - A Bronx Tale – Home Alone 2 – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – uhhh Elf