Brad Reckless
For the short time The New Enemy have been around ( roughly two years), the Toronto, ON natives have managed to earn a reputation for themselves by sharing the stage with some notable acts and have been working with Nick Zampiello (Against Me!, Converge) in the studio amongst other prominent producers and engineers. With two E.P’s under their belt, Shakedown being their most recent, the band (rounded out by vocalist Clint McLean, guitarist Luke Muldoon, bassist Declan Kerin and drummer Chris Branston) have done some serious foot work to get their progressive style of hardcore heard by the masses and they show no signs of stopping.
You guys have only been around for a short while. How did you manage to get on bills with such heavy weights like Agnostic Front, SNFU and Mad Ball?
Clint McLean: I guess just a combination of hard work and people seem to like our music. We’ve got a pretty solid following online and that kind of gets the ball rolling with promoters. We have a pretty good track record of getting out there in the streets and flyering and doing the Myspace and Facebook thing. Just making people aware of the band.
It must be pretty exciting to be on bills of that calibre
CM: Dude, it’s huge for us. We’re music nerds as much as we are band guys so getting to play with some of these bands we grew up on, it puts a smile on our faces. We’ve had a couple of great instances where the Agnostic Front guys and Black Lungs guys have come up to us and say “I really get what you guys are doing”. It makes you feel pretty damn good.
You guys have worked with some big names in the studio, as well.
CM: Yeah, both releases are produced by Simon Head, who is a personal friend of ours and also a pretty legendary name in Canadian punk rock. We click with him and joke around and not have to feel like it’s a work environment but he’s pretty honest with us and doesn’t let us get away with any sloppy takes. As for the production, we kind of used some bands and albums that we like and tried to search those guys out and see if they were willing to work with us. So far so good.
A lot of your lyrics are rooted in politics. Do you get classified as a political band?
CM: I wouldn’t consider us overtly political. I think we’re all very aware of social and political issues going on both on the world stage and locally. If you’re a self aware person some of that stuff is bound to piss you off so it’s only natural that you’re going to write some songs about it.
As a local band, it’s cool to see that you are releasing your latest E.P as a digital download as well as putting it out on disc.
CM: Actually both E.P’s are up for free download and in return if people want to give us money, we ask that they give it to Amnesty International instead, which people have been donating and that makes you feel pretty good. We’re pretty realistic about that fact that we’re not going to be millionaires over night through C.D sales so we might as well do something that will actually help someone else out and hopefully get our name out there as well as benefit someone else. It seems to be working out for us.
The Shakedown E.P gets pretty experimental and the song writing is more electic then your previous E.P. Was that a cautious effort?
CM: The first E.P was kind of less of a collaborate effort. It was more of myself and Luke piecing songs together and then taught them to the other guys and went into the studio where as this one was more of everyone coming to the table with something to offer either it be a song, lyric, or a riff of their own. We melded it all together from there and as a team this is something we are quite proud of.
Sound Pollution 2010
