International Noise Conspiracy Interview

[this was originally done in the spring of 2004 for a publication that didn't use this interview and since "Armed Love" finally came out in October, I'd thought I'd repost it here for s&g-- ry]

The International Noise Conspiracy is a politician’s nightmare and not in an NWA way. Tinny guitars and keyboard-driven melodies are the anthems of revolution. With a new album completed, singer Dennis Lyxzen spoke about punk politics, working with Rick Rubin and “refused” to talk about his previous band.

CHASING COOLNESS: How’s the new album coming along?

We’re almost done. We have a little bit of artwork left to do.

You worked with Rick Rubin. How was it working with a legendary producer?

It was pretty awesome. He definitely knew what he wanted to do with us and he knew what we could become. It was really cool. We had a really good time working with him.

You’ve also made the move from Epitaph to American, which is distributed by a major ( Island ) and as is such, you guys have gotten a lot of criticism for moving up. How do you counteract that?

Well, you know, people who criticize moves like that usually criticize from the basis of a punk rock ethic…. I think that the political ideas that we have are more important than to be a part of a certain scene…. There’s nothing outside the capitalist spectrum that we live in, so it’s kind of naïve to think that just because you’re on Epitaph, things are different from being on a major label. It’s just a part of the same idea – the same money, the same system. [They] aspire to become big labels. There’s no “outside of the system,” there’s no escaping it, so we figured, let’s just use this opportunity and let’s reach out to more people.

So the more people you touch with your message, the more you’ve accomplished.

Yeah, hopefully…. We’re not the saviors of the world or anything. We’re just a rock band that plays music. That’s what we like to do anyway, and talk about our politics that’s inspiring and fun. And if we can do that to more people than less people, then that’s great, because we’re not interested in maintaining punk rock as an underground phenomena….We’re interested in overthrowing the capitalist system and playing some good music.

You guys are also doing Warped Tour this summer, do you have any thoughts on that?

We don’t know much about the Warped Tour. I know it gets a lot of shit from a lot of people. It shows that something potentially subversive comes along, it’s really easy to turn it into a non-stop cash machine. You got Warped Tour in your shopping mall, so it’s no wonder why it’s doing so good. But I also think it shows that something that subversive and challenging, if it’s that big, it shows that there’s a lot of potential for change…. Whether you like it or not, there’s a lot of these kids that like these bands because they’re angry and whatnot…but there’s a lot of kids there who feel out of place and kind of fucked up and by being on Warped Tour we can show them that punk rock does not have to be about a pair of shorts and jumping up and down.


That’s a good way to look at it. Now, you’re going to be stateside for a while and it’s been sometime since you’ve toured here, do you think that there’s going to be a shift in your audience? Are you hoping to gain a new audience of people you haven’t heard T(i)NC before?

Of course. I don’t know if things have changed, the record’s not out yet and, like you said, we haven’t done anything in a while, so right now, we’re doing this tour to get the word out. Go out there and play in front of people. Just make people excited about the band again. Hopefully the record comes out and…we’ll reach a lot of people that never heard us before.