On May 1, 1886, labor unions organized a strike for an eight hour work day in Chicago, Illinois, United States. On May 3, a small riot occurred at the McCormick Harvester Plant in which there was a shooting and one fatality when police tangled with the rioters. Violence escalated on May 4 when a protest meeting began in Haymarket Square. During this meeting the police began to disperse the crowd when someone threw a bomb, killing twelve people. Although nobody ever identified the bomb-thrower, eight men, mostly of German descent, who were involved in organizing the rallies were accused of the crime and found guilty. Five of the men were sentenced to death, of whom one committed suicide. The other three were sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The sentencing sparked outrage in international labor circles, resulting in protests all around the world. (Wikipedia)

that's about the history. since 1999 a band has been working on redefining the term "haymarket riot". and well, they kinda set a cornerstone of the history of my cd shelf with their second album "mog" that came out on thick/southern earlier this year. i talked to kevin j. frank (voc, git) and fred popolo (b, voc, also president of divot records) in münster, right before their gig at the baracke.

it’s the third time that you’re playing here in the baracke münster. every time you’re in germany you’re playing here. do you like it that much?
fred: no, the guy who sets up the shows, he’ a god friend of us and he’s always been very good to us, so it makes sense for us to come back.

i mean, it’s the third time that you’re touring europe in two years, other bands from overseas have difficulties to come over here just once. what’s your secret?
kevin: we like to work at it. we had the fortune to meet good people, for example dolf, the guy ho books all of our shows. all the people that we meet, we have pretty good relationships over here.

and what are your impressions? what would you say is the biggest difference between touring the us und europe?
kevin: the biggest difference that i have noticed is that there seems to be a little bit more of a support system for smaller bands like us, bands that are more underground. when you arrive to the club they usually feed you dinner, they arrange where you sleep, in the morning there’s usually some breakfast... it seems like from that sort of prospective it’s a little bit better. in the states you really don’t have that. you show up to the club, you load in and you pretty much have to take care of yourself. if you don’t know anybody in the town you’re usully staying at a motel. and there’s also a lot of bands touring in the states right know, it’s almost oversaturated. there’s too many shows going on and people are burnt out. that’s why it is a little bit difficult to tour the states. whereas over here we’ve done better for the most parts. of course, there are some spots in the states where we do really, really, really well. but we’re at a point where we are getting older, we have other responsibilites in our lives and when we do decide to tour we have to sit down and think where we’re most like gonna have the chance to have a good tour. right now it’s coming over here.

there are lots of cool and even ground-breaking bands coming from chicago, your hometown, it has a very vibrant scene. what’s it like living there?
kevin: very busy! ha ha.
fred: it can be very stressful, it definitely fills your day. you’re working eight to ten hours and then trying to get some time in to go practice, write some songs, make a record.
kevin: because we have gone to many different places it gives us a chance to realize that there are bands from our area that are getting some sort of recognition, whereas if we stayed at home we probably wouldn’t know that.
fred: when they hear we’re from chicago everyone is kinda „ooh, chicago“, „that chicago sound“, that’s interesting and that’s how we see that chicago is a special town.

do you feel strong bounds to your hometown?
both: yeah! definitely!
kevin: on many levels it’s where we all grew up, in my opinion it’s the best city in the us. but that’s just me.

one half of the band supports the chicago white sox, the other half the chicago cubs baseball team. is that a problem?
both: hahaha!
kevin: this is serious! you have the white sox fans in the van, the other two guys are big cubs fans. but it doesn’t cause any problems. we’re all very knowledgeable baseball people, we make fun of each other, but in a good spirit.
fred: chicago is split up, you got south side with the white sox and north side with the cubs. for years it’s always been south against north. i personally don’t like icehockey and football that much, more baseball and basketball.

is there in any way sort of a mental connection between your bandname and the historical event, the haymarket riot?
kevin: when we first started we were going through a list of names and when we came across haymarket riot we thought it was appropriate, because a) we felt that it really fits our sound, b) we’re all from chicago and it’s a big part of the chicago’s history, and it has to deal with a lot of the labor issues that were going on in the late eighteen hundreds. We also like to think that we have a very strong work ethic, for the most part we all come from some blue-collar background and we all have that blue-collar sense of how we approach our work. on that level it made sense to us to name the band that way.

i’ve heard some people saying that your music might even be the soundtrack for this event.
fred: whow! there you go, we made the right choice.

your band logo shows two screws. does that also refer to your work ethic?
kevin: no, that was inspired from an accident that i was in two and a half years ago. i was hit by a car and it shattered my right hand. When they did surgery they inserted two screws in my hand. i had to go through an intense regiment of physical therapy and it took me a long time to get back. and when the accident happened i didn’t know if i could ever play guitar again. once i got through all that the logo just kinda came up and it’s more of a testament to hard working.
fred: it kinda fits everything.

you are the only two founding members left in the band and you’ve gone through a lot of line-up changes, this accident and lots of other problems. did you ever thought of quitting the band?
fred: i don’t think we ever thought about it. it was always more pushing forward, we slowed down to figure out who’s gonna maybe be the guys to come in and do it and play with us. kevin couldn’t play, i was out of town working, variables like that. but we’ve known these guys (chris and brian) for many years so it made sense we came together. it seems like this is going to be the line-up for a while, i don’t expect any changes unless... kevin breaks his other hand. ha ha.
kevin: i feel very good about this line-up. like fred said we’ve all known each other in some capacity for a long time and maybe this is one of those things where nature took its course to lead up to how it is now. i don’t think quit was never really brought up in any of our discussions. we just adjusted to what was happening at that time.

lets talk about “mog”. what do you think about it?
kevin: i love it. i think for how that record came about we did an amazing job. i would be a fool to say otherwise, i feel very proud of it, because all the obstacles that the band had to go through. i love the way it sounds. working with steve albini was amazing, because i really didn’t have any expectations going into it. i mean, you hear a lot of things about steve, and he’s someone who has a reputation in the musical community. i was very pleased with how the whole thing was organized, because steve is a very well-organized engineer. he really got into the project.

you recorded the album in just five days. was it to keep the budget low or to keep the sound raw or things like that?
fred: we could have spent more money, but going for three weeks wasn’t really an option. we had to get it done at that time. the reason steve’s so great is, because he knew he had to get it done in five days so he made sure it did happen. that’s what kevin was talking about how organized he is, he’s organized with the schedule. keeping things rolling.

and why did it take you three years to finish a new album?
kevin: line-up changes, accidents, jobs, money...

eeeh, well, all the things we just talked about...
kevin: there were times where it was very difficult to get together and practice and write songs.
fred: and even earlier when we were making other records we’ve always been not slow writing songs because we’re not good together, but because we’re always so busy. we were always practicing to go on tour, to play a chicago show. we actually had time not to do that and be able to write together.

a lot of people talk about you as a punk band. do you consider yourselves a punk band?
kevin: i honestly don’t really worry about that. i grew up on punk rock. if people think we’re a punk band – hey! that’s great! if they think we’re a rock band that’s fine, too. i like all kinds of music. i think that we just go up there and rock! i don’t think about things like that too much anymore, i can’t worry about that.

at last here’s one for your hearts. a guy that i know once said, now that fugazi are on maternity leave it’s good that there’s a band like haymarket riot.
fred: well, we’ve gone through it for years, all those comparisons. haymarket “fugazi” riot and all that stuff. me personally i don’t think we sound like fugazi aside from the one similarity there is, that there’s two guitars, bass and drums. are we going to be the new fugazi, kevin?
kevin: for playing in front of 500, 1000 or 1500 people a night – i’ll take it! i feel very honoured that someone said something like that, because a band like fugazi has done amazing things over the past fifteen or twenty years, and all the guys they’ve have been so involved since the early eighties. for someone saying something like this i’ll take that as a huge compliment. as far as being compared musically i think we do different things. i think we have a different demeanor of how we approach writing songs, but if you wanna lump it into a genre i can understand how someone would do that. but like fred said i think that we have our own thing going on and we approach things a little differently. there are certain elements within our songs that we do that they don’t do and vice versa. but i think it takes someone who really listens carefully to each band to pick that things out. but i’m flattered. i’d much rather being compared to a band like fugazi as opposed to a fucking shitty band like styx.

you signed to thick records for two albums. “mog” was the second album. what’s next?
fred: i dunno. we’re gonna make another record, but we never even think about labels, because we have our own. we always like to keep it open, we do whatever we want when we want, but in a positive way. we’re not trying to use anyone. we just do whatever we have to do. if we have to put it out we put it out. right now it was split between our label, divot records, and thick records. not just for fulfilling the contract, but zak, the guy who runs thick records is a good guy, he supports us, he’s been there from day one, so there was no reason why we should have released the albums on our own until now. it was all positive for us and we dictated how the stages that we’re at now. it’s not because we sit at home and watch movies all day. it takes some effort to get over here and spend the money we spend and the time...
kevin: our involvement with thick, when we get to that bridge we’ll cross it, if it’s a good thing for us and a good thing for zak then we’ll do it. i think there’s always an open door with him and with us because we have a very good relationship with him. right now we have to concentrate on working with the new line-up, because our drummer brian has only been in the band since may. getting the line-up more solid, doing this tour and then once we get back home... we’ve already started writing, we’re going to take it as it comes and we’ll see what happens.

thanks a lot. interview done by christian
visit www.divotrecords.com/haymarket