6 minute read
Reality Slap
Portugal used to have a strong hardcore (and straight edge) scene back in the past. I used to follow bands like Pointing Finger & the likes. Some years ago, while in Serbia, I got a CD from the Lisbon based band Reality Slap and it hit me immediately; imagine a mixture of NYHC with a modern twist. I talked with Johnny right after they finished their Iberic tour with Take Offense (mid April 2016). Check out the interview, listen to Reality Slap & make sure to visit Lisbon, one of the most beautiful cities in south Europe.
https://www.facebook.com/realityslap https://realityslaphc.bandcamp.com
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Hey Johnny! How was the tour with Take Offense? Give us a short tour report!
Hey man, what’s up? It was great, we just got back last night and played a last minute show in Lisbon after driving straight from Barcelona. The guys in Take Offense are really cool and that made everything easy since day one. Some shows didn’t have much promotion but others were great to play and everyone was really into it. Touring in Spain can be hard sometimes since it involves long drives but when you’re meeting cool new people and having fun at the shows makes everything worth it in the end.
As far as I know, Reality Slap started out as a project but from one point and on it became a regular band since the expectations
got higher. When did you form the band? Did any of you play in other bands before?
Yeah, Gus and I have been friends since forever, and this whole thing started when we started writing riffs just for fun at home. This was around 2005 and we would go to the studio occasionally to play the songs we had written at home, he playing guitar and me playing drums. Some years later, I think it was 2008, we decided to record a demo with the help of Pedro who is an amazing drummer. I think we played the first show in 2009 but I could be wrong ahah. I used to play guitar in a straight edge band called Eternal Bond and later I toured quite a lot playing bass in Devil in Me. Gus never had any other bands.
You live in London, while the rest of the band is based in Lisbon, Portugal. How hard is for you to rehearse and play shows?
When I first moved to London, we thought it would be harder but I don’t think it affected much the way we work. We never really practiced much, and now it’s no different. Since we’ve been touring more and more it gets easier. We just had to adjust and adapt the way we write songs, but we figured everything out now; but that was maybe the biggest reason for the absence of new material until now.
Portugal is getting back on the hardcore map with lots of shows & festivals lately. People are gathering from the whole Europe
for the European hardcore pool party and this is great. Moreover, Devil In Me & For The Glory are doin’ good abroad. How’s the scene there?
Portugal always had a great scene overall. Great bands and really active people involved in it. Geographically speaking we struggle a bit when it comes to touring and maybe getting known in the rest of Europe. There’s always ups and downs with every scene and I guess Portugal is no different, people come and go, but the ones who stay try to keep it as good as possible. We have a lot of very good bands that if they were North American or from the UK or Germany would be much more respected. Shout out to Shape and Push, two new bands from Lisbon that are really good.
I have also noticed that you have a strong DIY scene with lots of squats or even autonomous centres. Do you think this exists because of the economic situation? I mean Portugal, like Greece, was hit by the crisis and poverty the last years. How’s life going there right now? And, also, are those scenes (the DIY and the more ‘commercial’ one) united or separate?
Yeah man, we do. I think we always had a strong DIY scene and it’s not just happening now. Obviously the economy affects everyone and people respond to it. Last year a really cool cultural centre has opened in Lisbon called Disgraça and this is really cool. They have a venue for shows, vegan kitchen, library, they organise talks, benefits, movies /documentary screening and it’s all non profitable. These kind of spaces help the scene a lot and allow people to work locally together in a more constructive way. We needed something like this in Lisbon since there are a lot of places like this throughout Europe and we were still missing one.
It’s been a while since you’ve released a record. When should we expect something new? Any plans for the future?
Yeah, I know, it sucks. We have recorded a new EP with 8 songs last year and it’s due to come out really soon. It’s called “Limitless” and we’re all very excited about it. Me and Gus are the core of the writing process in this band and I think we figured out an efficient way of doing
this at a distance. We loved writing these new songs and the way everything came out together in the end. So I can say that we will be releasing stuff more consistently. We’re already writing new stuff for the future.
It’s a common truth that bands from mainland Europe have more chances to tour and play with bigger bands than the chances they have the ones that come from southwest or east European countries. Did you notice something like this with Reality Slap?
Oh man, that is so true. It would be so much easier to play festivals with bigger bands and more people on a weekend if we just had like a 3/6 hour drive to that place. We wouldn’t need to ask so much time off from work cause we could just do it in a weekend or so. In our case it’s
harder to get more active in the circuit I guess. Not only that but also and unfortunately some people treat this too much as a business only and that affects everything. I felt that more often that expected, it’s more important who you know and where you come from than how good and hard working you are.
How did you come up with Reality Slap as a band name? Are you disgusted with reality? What would you change if you were given the luck of the world for one day?!
Reality often sucks, that’s why so many people try to run away from it, wouldn’t you agree? But it is also amazing and beautiful, it’s a matter of how you choose to face it. Obviously some people really need a reality slap to wake the fuck
up. The idea of the name came from a Madball song (“Across your face”) and it fitted perfectly the message and concept of what we wanted to represent with this band. There are so many things I would change in this world man, but there are also a lot of things that are so perfect the way they are. It would be amazing if everyone could just stop for a second and look around them, care a bit more, connect a bit more with what surrounds them. You can never change the whole world, what you can do is live life the way you feel it’s best and change things around and within you, that’s already a big change.
