Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

What´s the name of your band? Disturbance

Can you tell about your band? Disturbance has been around since the mid-nineties, and has built a vast list of gigs playing from Berlin festivals to London pubs to Thessaloniki squats. They’ve played with most of the bands from the dawn of punk like Conflict, The Casualties, GBH, The Exploited, The Adicts, Cockney rejects, UK Subs, Sham 69, The Partisans, Varukers, The Restarts and Abrasive Wheels  to name a few. 

Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band?
Line up

Rob – vocals

Dim - guitar / backing vocals

Joz - bass / backing vocals

Jo - drums

Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? we play our own style of punk, inspired by 82 streetpunk and UK 77 style,  touching the anarcho scene lightly. Sometimes there are influences of psychobilly of surf, but we play these in our own way

Where was your first gig? It was in our hometown in the area of Rotterdam, Holland. We all lived in small village back then, and we were about 16 or so.

Where was the latest gig? In a squat in my new hometown, The Hague. It’s called ‘De Vloek’ (the Curse). The place (also a vegetarian restaurant and workspace for artists) is being threatened to get evicted and we wanted to do at least a good party before this will happen. We hope this won’t be the case, but you know how politics work

Who writes your songs?/Who writes the music who writes lyrics? Mostly I come up with some sort of base of a song and everybody puts in their own musical input on it’s way to a real song. Sometimes the base songs end up in the trashcan, and sometimes they end up on a record. I write the lyrics. In many cases Rob the singer sings on the song and later on I fit in the words he made up to get the right vocal-lines on the music

Who has the best since of humor in the band? We all have different kinds of humour. Apart from when we get drunk. Than it’s mostly the same shit. Bad dancing and stupid talk.

What are your songs about? In our lyrics you find questions, criticism and proposals about social, political or religious subjects and the values of punk and DIY. We always try to fit the lyrics onto the right feel of the music. So angry lyrics on a up-tempo song, and positive stuff on a ‘sing a long’. 

Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they?

Split Disturbance / Burning Lady  // LP // 2011 // 10" availabe on Dirty Punk Records

Shades of Fear // CD and LP // 2007 available on Dirty Punk Records                                                   

'Malice in Slumberland' // CD and LP // 2003 available on Streetmusic Records

Disturbance have brought out 2 full albums on vinyl and cd (Malice in Slumberland by German label street music and Shades of Fear by French label DirtyPunk) and one vinyl split with the French Burning Lady. Besides from that we appear on several samplers, like an Indonesia compilation by Treath Records,  a sampler in Equador and the recent ‘punks not deaf’ compilation, an all dutch cast of punk-bands from the beginning of punk in Holland.

Do you have any clips on YouTube?
we have our own channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpNJft2YruIFaCcxDx6_3Iw

There are also some uploads from other people, but if you fill in ‘disturbance, punk’ you will find them

How old are you?/What got you started in music? What year was the band started? Since we exist from 1995, we are old cunts. In the range of 35 and around.

At what age did you start playing? I was about 13 I think. At first me, Rob and Joz played at my attic at home. It was bizarre new wave freak stuff. We were just fucking around with whatever we liked. Later on we got more focused, and we get to know more punk, so as inspiration, we sort of grew in this scene…

Best/worst gig you've played? You never know what a gig will be like. We had some of the worst on big festivals and best ones in small squats.

What places will you be playing in in the imidate future?

Rebellion England 2015
http://www.rebellionfestivals.com/
The biggest punk only festival in the world I think

Where have you played from then till now? Several tours have been done, reaching from Germany to Croatia, from Scotland to Italy, and as cherry on top Disturbance did a 10.000 kilometre tour throughout China playing from Beijng in the north, to Hong Kong is the deep south by train.

What are the plans for the rest of the year? We would like to have a new full length album in 2015. We are approximately half way there now.

What are your goals with your music? Make good music people like, and let people still believe in punk and what it means. We do this through lyrics, but also to maintain dedicated to the music and the scene

What are your sources of inspiration? We are

How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? Difficult. Since downloading is big, there are just a few people buying vinyl, and no one buying cds. So it means the small punk record labels don’t sell. This makes it inpossible to bring out music for us, because we can’t make up for the money the studio is costing us. In not into the major music business though. Artists get filthy rich for all the wrong reasons. It’s stupid and for those people I think the downloading will only make them more creative.

What would be your dreams for the band?  I think we are quite satisfied for now.

What do you hold most dear? The people that still actively work for the scene, organizing gigs and give younger bands a chance to take part in the existence of punk. If nobody would do it, It would be dead for years already

Have you been in any other bands?

Rob and Jo are also playing in the Subrockers. It’s a bit different from Disturbance.
There are also members of other bands  from Holland like antidote (punk) and I-reject (hardcore)

http://www.subrockers.com/

What would you do if there was no music? Drink more and have relaxing weekends more often

How important are your fans? Important, they tell you if you are doing alright. They are the people that inspire you to go on playing. When somebody travel from another country to come see your band ( I once met a guy in Germany that came from Indonesia to come to see us), this gives you the feeling that you do something special to these people. That’s quite special don’t you think.

Name 2 of your own songs you like at the moment?
Our new ones, but you can’t hear them already.
Otherwise it would be the latest one that we have recorded. Like these ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpRbPN-l9zM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfPYfSeBe9Q

What do you feel is the best live band you've seen? Difficult. Adicts? Partisans? The Pixies? Buzzcocks? Madness? Can’t really pick one

What drives a band that isn't all that famous and renowned to try to make a living on their music and to keep playing? We are realistic. We can’t make a living with our music, so we do other things.

Do you have any webpages?
site
http://www.disturbance.nl/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Disturbance/115136418543606

youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfPYfSeBe9Q

Soundcloud
https://soundcloud.com/disturbance-punk

Bandcamp
https://disturbancepunk.bandcamp.com/

Myspace
https://myspace.com/disturbancepunk

Any pearls of wisdom for all other bands out there? maybe. I heard from other long existing bands that the key is this: Stay together, always, and keep doing what you do. Eventually it will work, because you are the only one left doing it.

Describe your show, visually and musically Happy Chaos, but better check out youtube. There is live stuff there

What are the biggest obstacles for a band? money, transportation and keeping the same objectives.

What was one of the most quarrelsome times for you in the band? I think the tour in China. It didn’t break us, but standing upright in trains all through the night without food nor sleep does not help.